Development of a web based decision support system (DSS) for selection of optimum size of power and machinery for paddy-pulse crop rotation
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Date
2019
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Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar
Abstract
Mechanization of farming sector is the need of the hour to accomplish timely completion of agricultural operations, reduce the cost of operation, lessen the drudgery and above all achieve enhancement in production and productivity of the farms. Looking at the acute shortage of labour in farm sector, the entire gamut of farm operations starting from land preparation to harvesting and threshing of the crops need to be mechanized in order to increase crop yield and thereby increasing the income of the farmers.
For increasing the level of mechanization, proper selection of farm power and machinery is the most important component. At present various makes and models of tractors, power tillers, electric pump sets, diesel pump sets and different farm implements are commercially available in the market. Today a farmer has a number of options to select a particular power source and machinery. Under these circumstances, the selection of a power source and machinery should be such that the farm operations are to be completed in time because delay of a particular operation reduces the yield considerably. Presently the farmers generally select power sources and machinery on the basis of the suggestions of the dealers/manufactures or other neighbouring farmers. Therefore, sometimes it results in selection of an undersized or oversized power sources and machinery sizes leading to huge capital losses. The selection of farm power and machinery in a rational and scientific way requires synthesis of large amount of information on the basis of which such decision can be taken. These information includes type of crops, crop intensity, soil type, type of tractor and machinery available, labour availability and their wages. The process is complex and tedious, as it requires a lot of computational work. Thus a web based decision support system (DSS) software was developed using PHP server scripting language for the optimum selection of farm power and machinery sizes. The purpose of the study was developing the software for mechanized operations and its application in paddy-pulse crop rotation.
The DSS was tested in two stages, first was sensitivity analysis by changing inputs of the program and second was chi-square test to compare the selected power by program with available power of the surveyed farmers. The developed DSS was found to be sensitive to the input parameters like farm size and tillage intensity level. The DSS selection was found to be in close agreement with the observed power source owned by the farmers of the study area. The study revealed that selection of power sources is less than 25.4 PTO hp for small and semi medium farmers, the power demand is fulfilled by a power tiller or a mini tractor. The optimum power requirement is less than 36.9 PTO hp for medium farmers and beyond 36.9 PTO hp for large farmers.
Description
Th-5629
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