Design, development and evaluation of potato cum sugarcane bud planter
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Date
2017
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CCSHAU
Abstract
Generally planting of any crop is very much important as far as the crop
growth and yield is concerned. Sugarcane and potato planting is a very labour intensive job
and involves considerable human drudgery. India stands second in sugarcane production in
the world next to Brazil. In case of potato, India is third largest potato producing country.
Manual method of seed planting results in high labour cost and poor depth control of seed
placement in addition to fatigue. The high cost of seeds of high yielding crops is a critical
component in agriculture and its efficiency determines the overall agricultural productivity.
Thus, this study was undertaken to design, develop and evaluate a planter which can plant
both sugarcane and potato crop. The developed potato cum sugarcane planter consisted of
seed metering unit (cup-belt having cups on belt periphery), main frame, furrow openers,
ground wheel for power transmission, ridgers and depth control wheels. The planter was
evaluated at different combinations of forward speed and seed hopper level. At forward speed
of 3.20 km/h in sugarcane crop and at 3.00 km/h in potato crop coupled with more than half
hopper level, planter gave desired performance. Effective field capacity of the planter was
0.47 and 0.49 ha/h for potato and sugarcane crop, respectively with field efficiency of 75 %.
The results obtained from the experiment indicated that the forward speed and seed hopper
level significantly influenced the missing and multiple index. When the forward speed of
planter was increased, the missing index also increased whereas multiple index decreased,
significantly. The draft requirement of the planter was 450 kgf in sugarcane planting and 435
kgf in potato planting. Planting of sugarcane buds and potato tubers by developed planter
resulted into net saving of Rs. 6433 and Rs. 5141 per hectare in sugarcane and potato crop,
respectively as compared to manual planting. The payback period and benefit cost ratio of the
planter was 2.06 and 0.60 year, respectively. The labour requirement for the developed
planter was 3 man-hours per hectare for both sugarcane and potato planting.
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