Performance evaluation of manually operated weeder

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the field performance of developed manually operated weeder in Chhattisgarh, India. For dry land crop, the machine was test on chickpea crop various parameters such as field capacity, weeding efficiency, draft requirement and performance index of the weeder was measured during the test. The developed weeder machine can work up to 3.0-4.0 cm depth of operation with actual field capacity of weeder 0.031 ha/h, theoretical field capacity of weeder was average .0428 ha/h, field efficiency of weeder 65.54 percent, plant damage was found 2.166and The draft requirement was 193N (0.079 hp) for 25 cm width of weeder. The weeding efficiency of the weeder machine was found to be 88.15 per cent with performance index of 12622.1. Experiment also revealed that the weeding operation time requirement for developed wheel operated weeder was much less than the manual weeding. It was easy to operate and most importantly involved less human drudgery during its operation.