DEVELOPMENT OF TRACTOR OPERATED GARLIC (Allium sativum L.) CLOVE PLANTER 2921
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Date
2019-08
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
JAU, JUNAGADH
Abstract
Garlic is commonly known as Allium sativum L. and it belongs to “Alliaceae”
family. Due to the lack of appropriate planting, cultivation and harvesting machinery
for mechanizing its production, it is still grown in relatively small fields using
traditional methods. It requires about 60 to 65 man-days to sow one hectare and
costing around ₹ 5200 per hectare. In this study, an innovatively designed tractor
operated, ground-wheel driven, nine row crop precision planters capable of planting
nine rows of garlic cloves at a spacing of 10 × 15 cm was developed and tested.
Some of the engineering properties like average length, width, thickness, sphericity,
1000 seed weight, angle of repose and bulk density of GG-4 and GG-5 garlic clove
were determined at moisture content of 48.92% and 58.38% (w. b.) respectively, as
26.36 mm, 11.82 mm, 10.32 mm, 0.54, 544 g, 38.16o
and 497.82 kg/m3
; 28.28 mm,
12.81 mm, 10.96 mm, 0.55, 667 g, 37.19o
and 529.71 kg/m
3
respectively.
The spoon type metering mechanism was designed and developed considering
the physical properties of cloves. 10 elliptical spoons were fitted on the periphery of a
metering roller of diameter 235 mm. The final operational parameters of the metering
mechanism were decided based on average seed spacing, miss index, multiple index,
quality of feed index, precision, seed rate, and mechanical seed damage. The spoon
size 10 and 20% more than the maximum seed dimension for metering unit showed
better results for GG-4 and GG-5 garlic clove with operating forward speed of 2.5
km/h. Further, a tractor operated planter was fabricated with the designed and
developed spoon type metering mechanism. The overall length × width × height of the machine is 1600 × 1350 × 1300 mm. The developed planter was tested in
laboratory and field conditions. During lab test, seed distribution and seed damage
were observed. The variation of seed distribution among the furrow openers was
found negligible for both the seed varieties. The visible mechanical damage was
found to be 5.51 and 5.70% for GG-4 and GG-5 garlic cloves respectively. During the
field test, field performance and seed metering efficiency were evaluated. The
effective field capacity was found to be 0.33 and 0.32 ha/h for GG-4 and GG-5 garlic
seeds respectively. The average field efficiency was observed as 80.33 and 79.02%
for GG-4 and GG-5 garlic variety respectively. The seed metering efficiency was
obtained through germination count by comparing the germination obtained in seed
damage test and germination obtained in the field. The results of seed metering
efficiency for GG-4 and GG-5 garlic seeds were 96.35 and 96.75% respectively.
Finally, the results obtained in laboratory experiment were compared with the results
obtained in field experiment and found that both miss and multiple index were more
at field conditions than laboratory condition for both the variety of garlic. The seed
rate obtained was near about similar for both laboratory evaluation and field
evaluation.
The total cost of planting with the developed planter was found to be ₹ 553.63
per hour and ₹ 1677.67 per hectare. The payback period of the developed planter is
2.27 years. It was concluded that the developed spoon type metering mechanism for
garlic planting shows the better result with less miss and multiple index with high
quality of feed index. The developed machine was minimizing the cost of cultivation
due to bed formation, planting and fertilizer application simultaneously with a single
machine.