FIELD TESTING OF A POWERED PADDY HILL SEEDER ATTACHMENT WITH AN OSCILLATING SINGLE CELL METERING ROLLER AND FURROW BOOT SHUTTER GATE MECHANISMS

Abstract

Rice (Oryza sativa) is one of the most important crops in India and occupies about 22 per cent of gross cropped area of the country. In India, the rice crop is highly dependent on the southwest monsoon, which occurs over the subcontinent from June through September. The non-availability of skilled labour at the planting season delays rice transplanting and ultimately results in poor yield. For obtaining a high yield, it is required to drop the desired number of seeds in rows while maintaining accurate seed rate and seed spacing during sowing (Karayel and Ozmerzi, 2004).

The crank- rocker driven oscillating single cell arrangement can provide precise amount of seed dropping and desired hill spacing (Nageswar Bandi, et al., 2020). The metering single cell size varies according to the variety of paddy to be sown. Desired combination of forward speed to the speed of seed metering (single cell roller) was identified in this study. The performance of the seed-metering mechanism of the precision paddy hill seeder was investigated under laboratory and field conditions to optimize the design and operating parameters of paddy line seeding. The effect of speed of metering roller disc, belt forward speed and cell size were evaluated by examining the mean hill spacing, missing index, multiple index, highest quality of feed index and precision in spacing (coefficient of variation). The field testing of the developed unit was conducted at instructions farm, KCAET, Tavanur.

It was observed that for picking the recommended seeds (3- 5 seeds/hill), the oscillating roller disc has a single cell size of 12 mm suited for Jyothi paddy variety. The optimum forward speed was 1.0 and1.5 kmh-1 while the metering roller speed was 70 and 90 rpm. Lower miss index was observed at highest cell size and lowest speed, and low multiple indices at low cell size and highest speeds (Shubham, et al., 2021).

The maximum field capacity and efficiency for the precision paddy hill seeder was found to be 0.22 ha h-1 and 84 per cent respectively. Performance comparison with existing sowing machinery showed several advantages like

reduced seed rate and better plant density. The total cost of operation computed is Rs. 2000/ha, which is found to be more economical when compared to manually operated drum seeder Rs. 3000/ha. Based on the laboratory and field performance evaluation, it is concluded that the precision paddy hill seeder is economical and efficient for line hill seeding of paddy seeds.