DEVELOPMENT OF BULLOCK DRAWN PLASTIC MULCH SHEET CUM DRIP LAYING MACHINE
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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
Plastic mulch sheet has shown significant effect over farming technique. It has several
advantage like weed control, moisture conservation, yield enhancement etcetera. Now
a days drip irrigation is become necessity. When mulching is practiced along with
drip irrigation, provides best results. At present, Farmers have to lay the drip line and
mulching sheet manually. Manual operations are cumbersome and consume much
time. Some automatic mulch and drip laying machines were developed but these are
not economical. To provide a better option, a mulch sheet cum drip laying machine
was developed at PAE, AAU, Dahod for the small farmers. Bullock drawn plastic
mulch sheet cum drip laying machine consist of multipurpose tool carrier (main
frame), mulch roll carrying unit, dripline roll carrying unit, mulch sheet pressing cum
transport wheel, mulch sheet covering unit, mulch sheet punching mechanism. The
performance of the machine was evaluated by determining the draft, power
requirement, theoretical field capacity, effective field capacity, field efficiency,
punching uniformity, punching efficiency and mulch sheet covering. Machine was
tested at two levels of mulch width 0.75 m & 1.20 m and three levels of thickness (25,
30, 40 micron). The results were analysed statistically using factorial randomize block
design. Average forward speed of developed machine was found as 1.98 km/h. Draft
was found minimum (29.14 kgf) for 0.75 m width and 25 micron thickness.