Development and performance evaluation of single row manual seed planter

Abstract

Planting of seed crops for cash and consumption by the Nigeria farmers is largely done manually using human labour. This is tedious and time consuming, therefore, the need to mechanize planting has led to various researches in the development of seed planters of various capacity. A single row manual seed planter was developed by NCAM to plant maize, cowpea and guinea-corn. The number of seeds per hole depends on the designed seed metering plate for each of the crop. Planting space was 24 × 60 cm, the total area of land used for field operation was 0.09ha and moisture content of the soil was 8.01%. The average values for effective field capacity, theoretical field capacity, field efficiency and the total time for maize, cowpea and guinea-corn during field test are 0.1186, 0.1205, 0.1108 ha/hr; 0.1215, 0.1231, 0.1198 ha/hr; 97.14, 97.91, 97.54% and 0.76, 0.75, 0.77 hr respectively. From this research work, it was observed that there was significant difference (0.007 to 0.031 at P ≤ 0.05) in effective and theoretical field capacity of the machine for maize, cowpea and guinea-corn but no significant difference in field efficiency of the machine for the three crops. Therefore, performance of the machine was satisfactory when compared to manual planters developed by other researchers and the traditional method of planting. Development of this planter has reduced the challenges associated with the traditional method of planting using peasant tools and enhanced planting seed crops to increase food security in Nigeria.