Design, development and testing of modular metering mechanism for multi crop planter
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Date
2012
Authors
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Publisher
CCSHAU
Abstract
India will have to produce 300 million tonnes of food grains to feed her 1.19 billion
populations. Sowing technique is most important operation performed in agriculture because
production mainly depends upon field emergence and initial crop establishment. Presently, different
sowing machines are used for various crops like Bt. cotton planter, zero till machine for wheat and
DSR machine for direct seeding of rice and it is not possible for a farmer to have different machines for
sowing different crops. Therefore, tractor drawn multi-crop planter was designed, developed and
evaluated having provision of sowing all major cereal crops, pulses and oilseeds at desired row to row
as well as seed to seed spacing especially for paddy by direct seeding technique and Bt. Cotton.
The developed ground wheel was of 380 mm diameter having provision of chain sprocket
arrangement of power transmission through a designed gear box with varying speed ratio of 1.6 to 4.5
times reduction from ground wheel to seed metering plate. The diameter of seed metering plate was
140 mm with varying number of cells and cell size to suit recommended spacing of major crops. The
speed reduction of ground wheel to fertilizer metering shaft is 2.3:1. The fertilizer hopper has
inclinations for accomplishing easy emptying and better utilization of fertilizer from hopper to fertilizer
box having vertical roller discs with eight cells in each disc. The two depth control levers and separate
seed hopper and seed metering mechanism/attachment with six vertical roller discs having 8 cells each
was provided for small seeded crops.
The performance evaluation of developed prototype was carried out under field condition for
Bt. cotton and direct seeding of rice. The effective field capacity of machine for both crops was 0.50 ha
h-1 and 0.45ha h-1 respectively at an average forward speed of 3 km h-1 with time lost in turning of
prototype 35 sec/turn and the corresponding field efficiencies were 61 per cent and 83 per cent
respectively. The field emergence (No. of plants /10m furrow length) observed in Bt. cotton planter
was 12-21 plants (7days after planting), 18-30 plants (15 days after planting) and 20-28 plants (21days
after planting) in Bt. cotton crop whereas field emergence of 125-140, 135-155 and 140-150 plants
7DAS, 15DAS and 21DAS was recorded in DSR crop. The distribution of plants in row and crop
response at field indicated that mean plant spacing observed was 48 cm and 10 cm with a quality of
feeding index 77 per cent and 78 per cent respectively for Bt. cotton and DSR crop. The missing index
and multiplying index recorded in Bt. cotton were 15% and 8% respectively, while, 16% and 6 % in
DSR crop. The precision in spacing observed was 6.3 percent and 7.08 per cent in Bt. cotton and DSR
respectively. The average plant height recorded 21 DAS in Bt. cotton and DSR was 15 cm and 13 cm
respectively. The cost of operation calculated for Bt. cotton and DSR crop was Rs ha-1 700 and Rs ha-1
777 respectively.
Description
Keywords
Sowing, Crops, Planting equipment, Cotton, Rice, Planting, Spacing, Land resources, Mechanization, Cultivation