DEVELOPMENT OF SMALL TRACTOR DRAWN TWO ROW BELT TYPE COTTON PLANTER.
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Date
2021-02-26
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Dr. Punjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth, Akola, Maharashtra.
Abstract
The dibbling of cotton seeds is done by labors in squatting posture which makes this operation laborious and drudgerious. Manual dibbling is a time consuming operation requiring about 200-250 man hours per hectare area and the cost involved is about 5000-6000/- Rs per hectare. In case of rainfed agriculture, to complete the sowing operation in limited time period is of great importance from further proper crop growth point of view. This creates high demand of labors during peak sowing season and the obvious labor shortages, resulting in higher demand of wages by the labor. In this study the efforts are made to develop a two row cotton planter with belt type metering mechanism to achieve the precision metering of the seeds.
In order to develop the planter the cotton hybrids selected for the study were NHH-44BGII, PKV Hy-2 BGII and ANKUR 4252 BGII. The plant spacing was selected as 90 x 45 cm. The laboratory testing of the developed metering mechanism was done on the sticky belt set up. The independent parameters selected were planter travel speed and the seed belt inclination angle. The three levels of each parameter were selected. The levels of travel speed were 2.5 km/h, 3.0 km/h and 3.5 km/h. The levels of seed belt inclination angle selected were 17 degrees, 34 degrees and 45 degrees. The dependant parameters were missing index, multiple index, quality feed index and uniformity index which are the indicators of the planter performance. From the laboratory trials conducted it was found that at forward speed of 3.0 km/hspeed and seed belt inclination angle of 34 degrees, the developed belt type seed metering mechanism gave better performance in terms of missing index, multiple index, quality feed index and uniformity index. The average germination percentage of the seeds was found to be 93.66 percent and seed damage percentage was 1.5 percent. Both the Missing index and Multiple index was lowest at the 3.0 km/hand 34 degree combination of forward speed and seed belt inclination angle combination. The lowest value of missing index was found to be 2.66 per cent for PKV Hy-2 BGII hybrid. Whereas the lowest value of multiple index was found to be 4.67 per cent for NHH-44 BGII hybrid. The quality feed index was highest at 3 km/hand 34 degrees combination of forward speed and seed belt inclination angle combination. It found maximum i.e. 92.00 per cent for NHH-44 BGII hybrid. The uniformity index was found highest i.e. 78.80 per cent at 3.00 km/h travel and 34 degrees seed belt inclination angle combination for NHH-44 BGII hybrid. It was found maximum at 3.0 km/h forward speed and 34 degree Inclination of seed belt.
The field trials were conducted at forward speed of 3.0 km/hspeed and 34 degree angle of seed belt inclination which was optimized during field trials. During field trials the average minimum values of missing index, multiple index, was found as 5.55 and 6.66 per cent respectively. Whereas maximum values of quality feed index and uniformity index was observed to be 87.77 and 72.17 per cent respectively. The average effective field capacity of the planter was found as 0.43 ha/h. Time required to cover one hectare was found to be 2.32 hours. The average cost of operation was found to be 349.79 Rs/h and 771.0 Rs/ha. There is 88.40 per cent saving in labour requirement and 79.41 per cent saving in cost of operation over traditional method of sowing of cotton crop.
Description
The present research work was carried out to develop the small tractor drawn two row belt type cotton planterwhich givesprecise planting withlow cost and time saving over the traditional methods.Optimization of the operating parameters were carried out to analyze the combine effect of the independent factors at three different levels on the dependent variables viz., missing index, multiple indexquality feed index and uniformity index. Performance evaluation of the developed planter was carried out in the field with optimized parametersfor sowing of cotton crop.
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Citation
GAJAKOS, AVINASH VITHAL. (2020). Development of small tractor drawn two row belt type cotton planter. Department of farm power and machinery (Agricultural Engineering), Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth, Akola. Ph. D. 2020. Print. xviii, 221p. (Unpublished).