Performance evaluation of bed planter for intercropping in castor
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Date
2011
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Publisher
CCSHAU
Abstract
In India, the area and production of castor is 0.74 million hectares and 0.93 million tonnes,
respectively. Castor (Ricinus communis L.) is most important oilseed crop of India due to the fact that
its oil has diversified uses and has great value in foreign trade. The intercropping in castor is carried out
on flat bed. Firstly, castor is sown manually or by pora method and the other pulse crops of short
duration are inter-sowed by seed drill. The process of sowing castor which is done manually or by
animals drawn sowing plough is very tedious and time consuming. Thus, there was a need to evaluate
the feasibility of raised bed system for intercropping of pulse crop in castor over existing practice of
intercropping. The different physical properties of the castor seed were determined for dry seed (5.9 %),
seed soaked for 6 hours (25.8 %) and seed soaked and 12 hours (32.8 %). The average length, average
width and average thickness were found to increase with increased moisture content. The values for
spherecity and roundness were not close to 100 % and hence seed shape could be considered oval. The
gravimetric properties of the castor seed as 1000 seed weight, single seed volume and bulk density
increased as soaking hours increased from 0 to 12 hours. True density and porosity increased for first 6
hrs of soaking and then the values decreased when the hours of soaking further increased form 6 to 12
hours.
The effective field capacity of planter was 0.50 ha h-1at average operating speed of 3.9 km h-1.
The missing index, multiplying index and quality of feed index recorded for bed planter were 10.71 %,
1.19 % and 88.10%, respectively. Payback period of bed planter and seed drill were calculated were
1.51 and 0.58 year. Break-even points in hr per year were 44.75 and 25.85 in case of bed planter and
seed drill. The plant stand obtained after 21days of sowing was higher for raised bed than flat bed by
24.33%, 23.33% and 24.33 % for castor intercropped with green gram, moth bean and cluster bean.
Significant difference was obtained for plant height at 30, 45, 60 days and at primary spike for castor
crop. The plant height was more for raised bed intercropping than flat bed intercropping for both castor
and pulse crop. Number of capsules/spike, number of pods/plant, length of spike and length of pod
were also higher for the raised bed intercropping than flat bed intercropping. Thousand grain and seed
weight for pulse and castor obtained was higher for castor crop and for pulse crop on raised bed than
flat bed. The yield (q ha-1) for pulse and castor obtained was 31.33 %, 29.77 % and 30.43 % higher for
castor crop and 4.51 %, 5.2 % and 6.27 % for pulse crop, respectively on raised bed than flat bed.
Description
Keywords
Honey, Sampling, Concentrates, Economic resources, Irrigation, Cellulose products, Biological phenomena, Sugar, Fruits, Acidity