Performance Evaluation of Manual Seeder Machine for Precision Farming

Proper placement of seeds in the field is the most important operation to obtain an optimum yield of the crop. In India, about 75% of the landholders are small and have marginal land-holding capacity. Considering the limitations due to costly seed, the traditional method of manual dibbling, labor shortage, and small marginal land holding pattern there is a need for small manual planters for small and marginal landholders. Cotton, the white gold, is the king of textile, fibers and it is an important worldwide cash crop. The sowing of cotton is labor intensive as its planting requires 3-4 man-days/ha. Because of the above, the manual seeder was tested in the laboratory as well as in the field as per IS code: 6316-1993 with specific objectives. Laboratory analysis of manual seeder as seed rate (2.85 kg/ha and 2.88 kg/ha), seed damage (7.84% and 7.74%), and seed uniformity (62 cm and 64 cm) of cotton and castor crop respectively. Field analysis of manual seeder as coefficient of uniformity (91.63% and 93.23%), depth of seed placement (5.7 cm and 5.9 cm), speed of operation (1.82 km/h 1.84 km/h), theoretical field capacity (0.93 ha/h and 0.93 ha/h), effective field capacity (0.166 ha/h 0.171 ha/h), field efficiency (86.01% and 88.60%), draft (9.54 kgf and 10.46 kgf), energy consumption (10.93 MJ/ha and 10.04 MJ/ha) and cost of operation (440 Rs/ha and 445 Rs/ha) of cotton and castor crop respectively.