Development and evaluation of self-propelled rice ridge seeder for pre-germinated seeding.

Abstract

Seeding of pre-germinated rice seeds is increasingly considered an alternate to manual transplanting because of reduced labour and drudgeries; higher profit and comparable yields. Traditionally farmers practice manual broadcasting of pre-germinated seeds. For line sowing many designs of manual drum seeders have been developed but pulling them on puddle fields involves drudgeries and is classified as heavy work. Besides this, their capacity is rather low. To address the issue, development of self-propelled rice ridge seeder was taken up and its performance was compared. Lab testing of seed metering mechanism revealed that seeding rate variation within permissible 10% limit is possible by maintaining a desirable drum fill condition. The developed unit is designed for ridge seeding of pre-germinated seeds in 8 rows at 24 cm spacing. A 4.5 hp diesel engine was selected taking into consideration the draft requirement in puddle field. The seed metering mechanism with provision of varying seed rate is driven by rear shaft from engine. The effective field capacity was 0.30 ha/h at 2 km/h forward speed. The developed unit is suited to operate in shallow puddled fields just after the drainage of surface water, when the moisture content of topsoil layer is nearer to liquid limit. The yield of crop sown by the developed unit was 5.3 t/ha and it was comparable to manual transplanting (5.7 t/ha) and manual drum seeder (5.1 t/ha) and it was higher than manual broadcasting (4.4 t/ha). Seeding by developed unit helped in avoiding nursery raising; in eliminating the labour for rice transplanting; in reducing the drudgery of labourers both in pulling the manual drum seeder or in manual transplanting of rice seedlings and in reducing the cost of cultivation. The net return was higher by Rs. 3,093 (US $ 67.2) per ha for crop sown by the developed unit in comparison to transplanting. The pre-germinated ridge seeding by the developed unit provides a viable option for cultivation of rice as an alternate both to broadcasted rice and transplanted rice.