Performance evaluation of sigle row manual cotton planter

Abstract

A proper placement of seed in field is most important operation in order to obtain\roptimum yield of crop. Day by day the land fragmentation was increased and which resulted near\rabout 65 pre cent of the land holders are small and marginal land holding capacity in the region.\rConsidering the limitations due to costly seed, traditional method of manual dibbling, labour\rshortage and small marginal land holding pattern there is need of small manual planter for small and\rmarginal land holders. In view of the above, the manually operated seed planter was tested at\rDeptt. of Farm Power and Machinery, Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth, Akola. A single\rrow cotton planter was evaluated for performance by conducting laboratory and field tests. In\rlaboratory test calibration of planter for seed rate, uniformity of seed planting and percentage of\rseed damage was determined at three cell plate, two gear ratio and level of seed in hopper. Based\ron the laboratory test cell plate, gear ratio and level of seed in hopper were selected for field test.\rThe three trials of planter were taken for planting Bt-cotton crop. The field tests comprised of\rdetermination of effective field capacity, average depth of placement of seeds in the furrows and\rmean spacing of seeds within each row. The rate of work was observed to be in the range of 0.18\rto 0.21 ha/h at forward speed of 2.24 to 2.5 km/h in well prepared seed bed along with the opened\rfurrows. The average depth of planting was observed in the range of 4.5 cm to 5cm. The field\refficiency of the planter was observed in the range of 88.88 to 91.1 per cent.