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Thesis

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2018 - 20193
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Subject: Farm, Machinery and Power × End date: 2019 × Start date: 2018 × Thesis Type: Ph.D ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Design, Development and Evaluation of Manual Drum Seeder for Onion Seeds
    (Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, 2019) Verma, Kanishk; Thakur, S.S.
    Onion (Allium cepa L.) is one of the major vegetable crops grown throughout the country. The labour requirement in manual transplanting of onion seedlings is as high as 100-200 man-days/ ha as 8.9 lakh seedlings per hectare are to be transplanted. Because of the high requirement and shortage of labour, the area under onion cultivation is low. To increase the mechanization of this crop at low cost a prototype of the manual onion drum seeder was developed and fabricated. Three drums were developed and fabricated with three different hole size i.e. 3.0mm, 3.5mm and 4.0mm based on the physical properties of onion seeds. The drums of the seederwere evaluated in laboratory at three speeds 1 km h-1, 1.5 km h-1and 2.0 km h-1.In the laboratory evaluation it was observed that average seed rate for drum D1, D2 and D3 was 6.60, 6.77 and 12.73 kg ha-1. The average seed spacing was 6.7, 7.7 and 4.10 cm for drum D1, D2 and D3. Average missing index was 11, 11 and 6% for drum D1, D2 and D3. Average multiple index was 14, 14 and 27 % for drum D1, D2 and D3. Average singulation was 75, 74 and 66 % for drum D1, D2 and D3. The developed onion seeder was then evaluated in the field.It was found that forwarding speed of onion seeder was 1.2 to 1.5 km h-1. The field capacity observed was 0.05 ha h-1 and field efficiency was 83%.Seed rate of drum D1 (7.3kg ha-1) and D2 (7.4 kg ha-1) was less than the manual sowing (8.2 kgha-1) and drum D3 (13.4 kgha-1) have higher seed rate than recommended seed rate (10-12 kg ha-1), drum D1 and D2 was found suitable in maintaining plant to plant spacing (7-8 cm).Missing index of Drum D1 and D2 was (11%) more as compared to the data of drum D3 (9%). Multiple index of drum D1 and D2 (14%) was less than drum D3 (28%). Singulation was higher in drum D1 and D2 (74%) as compared to drumD3 (67%). The yield obtained was 28tonnes ha-1, 26 tonnes ha-1 and 21 tonnes ha-1 from drum D2, D1 and D3 respectively.
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    ThesisItemRestricted
    Design, development and evaluation of a tractor operated paddy straw bale shredder
    (Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, 2019) Sunil Kumar; Dogra, Baldev
    Paddy is a major cereal crop of Punjab. Paddy cultivation is practiced on more than 3 Mha area of the state. Paddy straw burning is major issue of Punjab and its adjoining states. More than 20Mt of paddy straw is generated annually in Punjab, out of this farmers burn approximately 15 Mt paddy straw in the fields. Paddy straw burning releases a number of pollutants such as particulate matter, sulphur and carbon oxides, besides degradation of soil health. Paddy straw can be used as a mulch for next season crops. Mulching reduces weed emergence, reduces water evaporation from soil surface and improves soil properties. A paddy straw bale shredder cum mulcher was designed, developed and evaluated to use baled paddy straw as mulch. Theoretical design of paddy straw bale shredder cum mulcher was done. Thereafter its 3-D model was developed. This machine was fabricated in Dr S. R. Verma Research Hall of Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering. Performance of the developed machine was evaluated at three levels of forward speed (F1= 2.25, F2= 2.65 and F3= 2.95 km/h), three levels of shredding rotor tip speed (S1= 30.71, S2= 36.47 and S3= 41.84 m/s) and three levels of deflector angle (A1= 25°, A2= 30° and A3= 35°) on garlic planted on 1m wide beds. The selected dependent variables were mat thickness, uniformity of spread, weed count, plant damage, fuel consumption and effective field capacity. The effect of forward speed and rotor speed on mat thickness, coefficient of variation and fuel consumption was significant at 5% level of significance. CV was minimum (43.62%) at treatments combination F1S3A1. CV increased with increase in forward speed and decreased with increase in rotor speed. Maximum mat thickness of 59 mm was obtained for F1S3A1. It decreased with increase in forward speed and increased with increase in rotor speed. The weed count was minimum (10) for treatments combination F1S3A1. Weed count decreased with increase in mat thickness. Yield of the crop increased with the increase in mat thickness. Maximum yield of 47.31 q/a was observed for F1S3A1 that had maximum mat thickness of 59 mm. It was 8.98 % higher than control (without mulch). No plant damage was observed due to machine operation in the field. Average effective field capacity of the machine was 0.25 ha/h. The average fuel consumption during machine operation was 4.61 l/h.Net savings by using the developed machine increased by Rs 6665 per hectare.
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    ThesisItemRestricted
    Development and evaluation of vertical disc type vegetable transplanter for cell type nursery
    (2018) Bhambota, Shiva; Dixit, A.K.
    A tractor operated semi-automatic two row vegetable transplanter using plug type nursery was developed. The machine released the seedlings close to the ground in near vertical position without any damage. Coco-peat, vermiculite and perlite in the ratio of 3:1:1 on volume basis (M1) and another media recommended by Punjab Agricultural University (M2), the contents of which are not yet in public domain were studied. The cell volume of the three cells (C) studied were: 63.8 cm3 (C1), 18.70 cm3 (C2), and 16.28 cm3 (C3). Higher values of all the plant growth parameters were observed in cell size C1 as compared to cell size C2 and C3 which had non-significant differences, for the same media and seedling age. Higher values of all the plant growth parameters were observed for media M2 as compared to media M1 at all stages of growth for all cell sizes. The effect of media, however, varied with the crop as well as the plant growth parameter. Plucking rating was highest in lowest cell size (C3) with media (M2) at higher stage of plant growth. Nursery used for field evaluation of all the crops studied was grown in with media M2 in cells C3. Plant missing and heart rate increased with increase in feed rate for all the subjects. However, the effect of cell size (C) on plant missing and heart rate was non-significant. Plant missing and plant doublings in both the field conditions (i.e. with or without raised bed) were similar which increased with increase in forward speed for all the crops studied. The plant missing on raised beds, in the range of forward speeds studied (1.00 km/h to 1.50 km/h), were: 3.70% to 28.40%, 0.0% to 13.73% and 0.0 % to 2.80% in case of tomato, brinjal and chilli respectively. Plant doubling in the field with raised bed was observed only at speed of 1.50 km/h which were: 7.41% and 2.33% in case of tomato and brinjal respectively. No plant missing or doubling was observed in case of chili even at forward speed of 1.50 km/h. All the plants transplanted were erect (plant inclination less than 30o) at average depth of planting ranging from 4.0 cm to 7.0 cm. for all the crops and field conditions studied. No plant mortality was observed for the crops transplanted with the machine. Estimated field capacity of the machine was 0.103 ha/h, 0.126 ha/h, and 0.152 ha/h for tomato, brinjal, and chili respectively at the recommended forward speed of 1.00 km/h, 1.25 km/h, and 1.50 km/h respectively for these crops. Savings in labour and transplanting cost was 84.71% to 86.20% and 24.07% to 31.46% respectively, as compared to manual method.