DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF MINI TRACTOR MOUNTED TWO ROW AUTOMATIC POTATO PLANTER
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Date
2019
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DEPARTMENT OF FARM MACHINERY AND POWER ENGINEERING COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY ANAND AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY GODHRA
Abstract
Potato is an important vegetable crop of winter season in Gujarat. Cultivation of potato is highly labour intensive when it is carried out by labours with kodali and pavda. Delay in planting due to shortage of labour during season causes progressive decrease in yield. The area under potato crop cultivation and yield may be increased if planting is mechanized through introduction of low cost planting technologies. In India, there are medium and big tractor (35 hp or more) operated potato planters which are manufactured by the various farm machinery manufacturers. During last few years mini tractors of 20 hp or less than 20 hp are being popularized and are being manufactured by various tractor companies but there is lacking of matching equipment for these mini tractors. So, according to RNAM test code, mini tractor mounted two row automatic potato planter was designed and developed for sowing whole potato tubers (Kufri pukhraj) at (60 cm x 20 cm) in the field. The total manufacturing cost of the planter was worked out Rs.49000/-. The size of potato used for the experiment was in the range of 35 to 45 mm and the tractor used was 18 hp mini tractor. Evaluation of the planter was done in the laboratory for calibration at three different speeds. Performance evaluation of the planter in the field was carried out at three different speeds (1.5 km/h, 2.0 km/h & 2.5 km/h) and at three different levels of front ballasting (50 kgf, 100 kgf, & 150 kgf). The effect of these two independent variables on theoretical field capacity, effective field capacity, field efficiency, draft requirement, power requirement, fuel consumption, wheel slippage and skid of ground wheel, missing and multiple percentage and cost of operation was evaluated in field conditions.