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ThesisItem Open Access Design and development of planter for tuberose and gladiolus crops and its performacne evauation under field condition(G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand), 2019-07) Ananda Kumar, T. M.; Singh, T. P.Sowing / planting is the pivotal operation in cultivation of any crop which involves factor like correct seed rate, appropriate depth of placement, proper spacing and orientation. These parameters influence the production of crop. Presently the planting of Tuberose bulbs and Gladiolus corms is performed manually in the hilly states of Uttarakhand. The time and method adopted for planting Tuberose and Gladiolus corms decisively affect the germination and hence production. The traditional method of planting Tuberose and Gladiolus as adopted by farmers is to make shallow furrow digging with the spade and put the corm (bulb) in the furrow and cover it with the soil which is very tedious and time consuming operation. Hence, mechanization of planting of Tuberose and Gladiolus is one such area where there is a greater scope to increase its production and productivity and make it a profitable business venture for farmers. Thus it requires to develop a single planter which can plant both the crops to achieve planting operation timely. The present study was undertaken to develop a suitable planter for planting Tuberose bulbs as well as Gladiolus corms in field with minimum bulb damage. During this study, the physical properties of Tuberose bulbs and Gladiolus corms namely, size, shape, bulk density, true density, porosity, moisture content, angle of repose and coefficient of friction were also studied to make good use of the result in designing the components of the planter. Firstly picker wheel type metering mechanism was developed and evaluated in the soil bin. The performance of this mechanism was not found satisfactory for both Tuberose bulbs as well as Gladiolus corms. Hence, another metering mechanism, wheel with curved fingers was developed and evaluated for both Tuberose bulbs as well as Gladiolus corms in soil bin. The performance of this metering mechanism was found satisfactory in soil bin test and hence a prototype planter with four rows was designed and developed by incorporating the developed metering mechanism. Thereafter the prototype planter was evaluated in actual field condition for both the mentioned crops. The performance parameters namely mean spacing, missing index, multiple index, quality feed index, coefficient of uniformity, precision, coefficient of precision (CP3 values), visible damage and number of bulbs per meter length were calculated and analyzed statistically. The economics of planter was also determined and was compared with current practice of planting of bulbs/corms i.e. manual method. From the results, the values of geometric mean diameter, arithmetic mean diameter, sphericity was found as 29.6 and 26.74 mm, 0.435 respectively. Similarly for Gladiolus corms these parameters were found as 33.91 and 34.56 mm, 0.77. The bulk density, true density, porosity and angle of repose of Tuberose bulbs were found as 656 and 875.2 kg/m3, 25.02 % and 37° respectively whereas for Gladiolus corms these values were found as 580 kg/m3, 879 kg/m3, 33.92 % and 32° respectively. The soil bin test results indicated that wheel with curved fingers type mechanism gave the better results for both Tuberose bulbs as well as Gladiolus corms at forward speed of 1.5 and 2.0 km/h for all the three nominal spacings of 15, 20 and 25 cm. The quality feed index of 98.12, 93.89 and 96.26 % was obtained for Tuberose bulbs at forward speed of 1.5 km/h for nominal spacings 15, 20 and 25 cm respectively whereas for Gladiolus corms it was observed 96.37, 97.12 and 97.62 % at all three nominal spacings respectively. Visible damage of bulb/corms was found zero for all three nominal spacings at forward speeds of 1.5 and 2.0 km/h for both Tuberose bulbs as well as Gladiolus corms. The result of field evaluation of planter for both crops was found better at forward speed of 1.5 km/h and wider nominal spacing of 25 cm. The draft requirement, actual field capacity and field efficiency of the planter was found as 3310.4 N, 0.135 ha/h and 83.05 % respectively. The average fuel consumption of the tractor to operate planter was observed as 6.75 lph and 50.00 l/ha. The total cost of manual planting of Tuberose bulbs and Gladiolus corms per hectare was found as Rs. 14732.00 and Rs. 15237.00 respectively while the same by planter was found as Rs. 6623.70/- per hectare. Thus a saving of 55.04 and 56.93 % was found in planting of Tuberose bulbs and Gladiolus corms by the developed planter over the compared to manual method.