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DEVELOPMENT OF MULTICROP PLANTER FOR HILL AGRICULTURE

KrishiKosh

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Title DEVELOPMENT OF MULTICROP PLANTER FOR HILL AGRICULTURE
M.Tech.
 
Creator HIJAM JITEN, SINGH
 
Contributor Dipankar De
 
Subject Maize seed, soybean seed, physical and engineering properties, inclined plate metering device, semi-circular cells, and performance parameters.
 
Description T-8820
North-eastern-hilly region of India offers scope for cultivation of a wide variety of agricultural crops because of its diversities in topography, altitude and climatic conditions. Agriculture provides livelihood support to more than 70 % of the population of the region. Agriculture in this region can be distinguished from agricultural sector in the rest of India in terms of its features, patterns and performance. The agrarian economy of the region is rice-based, but in some states as Sikkim the agriculture economy is maize-based. Maize (Zea mays) and soybean (Glycine max) are two of the important major crops grown in the region. Maize is the next important cereal crop after rice in terms of cultivated area. Soybean has been declared as a potential crop for NEH region of India. It is also being considered as a viable option in the region for enhancing food security and livelihood of rural households in the region.
Sowing is a critical field operation that makes the prospects of a crop. Farmers in the region still follow traditional methods of manually sowing as broadcasting or dibbling. These methods result in lower yield due to uneven distribution of seed, low germination and excessive weed growth. Largely, agricultural operations are labour intensive and performed manually. Existing locally evolved tools give low output and involve excessive drudgery. Machines designed for plains are not suitable in the hills due to topography and size of land holdings. Topography, undulating terrain and small landholdings limit the introduction of large tractors and power tillers due to high turn-around time, or sometimes unapproachable to the plots. Although a number of planters have been developed in the country, these could not be adopted by the farmers of the hill areas due to their heavy weight. Therefore, there was a need for a lightweight power operated seed planter for timely operation with low drudgery in terraced land where there was a large vertical interval. With this view, this study was undertaken to develop and evaluate a two-row power operated multicrop planter for planting maize and soybean.
Physical and engineering properties of maize and soybean seeds helped in determining the design values of different parts of the metering mechanism, such as cell shape, cell size, metering plate thickness and hopper wall slope. Inclined plate metering mechanism was designed, fabricated and tested on the sticky belt set-ups for uniformity of seed spacing, performance indicators using different combinations of design variables such as metering plate of different cell shape (semi-circular B1, rectangular B2 and L-shape B3) and different cell size (7, 8 and 9 mm for maize and 10, 11 and 12 mm for soybean seeds). The performance of inclined plate metering device with semi-circular cell shape and 7 mm diameter cell size was
found optimum for maize seeds. Average spacing, quality of feed index, multiple index, miss index and precision for this combination were 17.48 cm, 79.33 %, 18.67 %, 2 % and 10.5 %, respectively. In case of soybean seed, average seed spacing of 9.65 cm was close to the theoretical seed spacing of 10 cm for the plate with semi-circular cell shape and 12 mm diameter cell size. Average spacing, quality of feed index, multiple index, miss index and precision for this combination were 9.65 cm, 77.33 %, 14.33 %, 8.34 % and 18.73 %, respectively. With the above design values, the prototype multicrop planter was designed and fabricated using necessary components for planting maize and soybean seeds.
The field evaluation of the prototype recorded an average draft and power requirement of 1.56 kN and 0.61 kW at soil moisture content of 12 to 12.5 % and bulk density of 1.2 to1.3 g.cm-3 with an average fuel consumption of 0.75 l.h-1. An average field capacity of 0.11 ha.h-1 was obtained for continuous operation of multicrop planter at an average forward speed of 1.36 km.h-1 for both the crops. The machine had an overall average field efficiency and field machine index of 80.74 and 71.78 %, respectively. The average depths of seed placement were 2.25 cm and 2.15 cm for maize and soybean, respectively. The average plant spacings on the 21st day post sowing were 16.74 cm and 8.51 cm for maize and soybean, respectively, against the theoretical seed spacings of 17.48 cm and 9.65 cm. The average plant population per meter length of bed was 6 and 12 as against theoretical plant population of 5 and 10 for maize and soybean, respectively. Average germination percentages in field were 76.67 and 73.33 % for maize and soybean, respectively. The machine weighed 65 kg, and thus suitable for hilly regions.
The estimated cost of the prototype planter was Rs. 35,290/- and hourly cost of operation was Rs. 120/-. The cost of operation of the planter per hectare was Rs.1100/-. The cost of operation is much lower than cost of manual dibbling method of planting (Rs.3125 /- per hectare), commonly practiced in hilly areas, which saves up to 64.80 % of operational cost as compared to manual planting. The breakeven point was 97.22 h.yr-1 with a payback period of 2.09 years.
 
Date 2016-07-30T11:21:19Z
2016-07-30T11:21:19Z
2013
 
Type Thesis
 
Identifier http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/70229
 
Format application/pdf
 
Publisher IARI, Division of Agricultural Engineering, New Delhi