Thakur, T.C.Shinde, Anil Tukaram2019-06-202019-06-202004-07http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810109372A subsoiler-cum-fertilizer applicator was designed and developed by selecting the best parameters of winged subsoiler with shallow leading tines from previous studies. The equipment consisted of a rectangular frame, a main winged tine, two shallow leading winged tines, two depth control wheels, a fertilizer box of 50 kg capacity equipped with three fixed hole type metering devices, fertilizer conveying system and a ground driven wheel with sprocket and chain arrangement for transmitting power to fertilizer metering rollers. The equipment was evaluated in laboratory for studying the aspects related to fertilizer distribution with different angles of deflector plates and in terms of soil and machine parameters in field. Two shallow leading winged tines were mounted on the rectangular frame longitudinally at 400 mm ahead of the main tine (X-plane), laterally at 850 mm in (Y-plane) and 0.5 times the working depth of main tine in vertical direction (Z-plane). Prior to laboratory testing of the machine, the physical properties of different fertilizers viz. DAP, SSP, MOP and NPK complex were determined and two fertilizers i.e. NPK complex in granular form and MOP in powder form were selected for further investigations. Different deflector plates with included angles of 150, 300, 450, 600, 750 and 900 were tested in laboratory for uniform and continuous band placement of two selected fertilizers at 90 rpm speed of metering roller. The deflector plates with 450 included angle was found best for NPK complex whereas for MOP 600 angle gave best results followed by 450 angle. The minimum Coefficient of Variations of 10.40% and 12.22% with Christiansen’s Coefficient of Uniformity of 95.44% and 94.39% were observed with NPK complex and MOP, for 450 and 600 angles of deflector plates, respectively. The field testing of machine was carried out in sandy loam soil (33.72% sand, 40.25% silt and 26.03% clay) at an average moisture content of 12.69% (d. b.) to evaluate its performance on the basis of changes in soil dry bulk density, specific draft and wheel slippage at 200, 300 and 400 mm depths of operation, respectively. The results revealed that the bulk density was uniform throughout the soil profile after subsoiling at 400 mm depth. The soil bulk density was reduced to a maximum of 16.55% . The specific draft for 300 mm and 400 mm depths of operation was found lower by 19.42% and 31.50% than those of earlier studies with conventional leading tines under similar soil type and conditions studied at Pantnagar. However, the wheel slippage was as high as 24.11% at a draft of 14.63 kN for 400 mm depth which was well beyond the pulling capacity of a 45 hp tractor. The discharge rate of NPK complex and MOP fertilizers in the field were obtained as 59.50 and 56.70 kg/ha with 11 mm diameter opening of metering plate.ennullThesis