Development and evaluation of tractor mounted inter-row weeder-cum-fertilizer applicator for dryland crops

Abstract

Weeding and fertilizer application are two most tedious and laborious field operations in crop production. At present, the unavailability of timely labour and high labour wages is a serious issue in field crop cultivation. An inter-row weeder cum fertilizer applicator for small and medium sized tractors was developed and evaluated for wide row field crops. The equipment performs inter row weeding and application of fertilizer simultaneously for crops having a row spacing of 45 to 120 cm. The fertilizer metering mechanism was calibrated in the laboratory at different combinations of forward speed (S), hopper levels (H) and orifice settings (O) for optimum rate of delivery of fertilizer. It was found that fertilizer rate was optimum at a forward speed of 4.04 km h-1 with 3/4th hopper capacity and orifice opening being “maximum” which was on par with the recommended rate of delivery. Field evaluation was carried out at RARS seed production farm, Vijayapur having moisture content in the range of 14.70 to 19.90 % (d.b). The fertilizer rate was in the range of 26.33 to 31.49 kg ha-1, average theoretical field capacity of the operation was 0.83 ha h-1. Field efficiency and effective field capacity were 81.12 % and 0.67 ha h-1, respectively. The mean value of weeding efficiency was determined to be 90.45 %. Plant damage was found to vary between 3.3 to 4.2 % with an average value of 3.6 %. The fertilizer use efficiency was found better as compared to the traditional methods of application thereby reducing the cost of cultivation considerably.