DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF A WEEDICIDE APPLICATOR FOR POWERED PADDY DRUM SEEDER ATTACHMENT TO A RIDING-FLOAT TYPE SELF- PROPELLED UNIT

Abstract

Rice (Oryza sativa) one of the major staple diet of world belongs to genus Oryza of Gramineae family. The farmers are now being encouraged to adopt direct seeding of rice in place of conventional transplanting. Direct paddy drum seeder has eliminated the need of transplantation and hours of manual work which literally broke the back of the women labourers involved in transplanting of rice fields. The success of direct seeded rice is fundamentally dependent on the control of weeds. The yield loss by weeds commonly around 5 to 10 %, but it can extend upto 50 % in extreme cases. The simultaneous application of the weedicide along with sowing will minimize the proliferous growth of weeds and will save the number of repeated weedicide spraying operations. The weedicide applicator attachment unit is attached to the Moncompu Model of pre-germinated direct drum seeder attachment powered by Yanji rice transplanter engine. The weedicide applicator attachment unit mainly consists of two V star operated battery operated 16 sprayers, spray boom with 8 flood jet nozzles, guards to protect falling of spray fluid over the pre germinated sown, pressure gauges and pressure line. Four flood jet nozzles are connected to one sprayer and another four nozzles to other sprayer, to reduce the hydraulic losses. Laboratory tests were conducted to determine the spray pattern and suitable working pressure for the proper working of weedicide applicator. The laboratory tests and field tests were conducted. From the laboratory tests, we found that 0.06 kg/cm2 is the best suitable pressure for desired working of weedicide applicator attachment to apply weedicide in the channel between ridges on which seeds sown. We observe that the discharge increases with increasing pressure and decreases with increasing row distance. And the nozzle when placed transverse to the direction of machine travel is most suitable for positioning the nozzles on spray boom. At 0.06 kg/cm2 pressure, it was observed the discharge rate and application rate was 192 /h and 844.8 /ha respectively, when the machine was moving with a forward speed of 1.5 km/h. The field capacity and field efficiency of the machine is found to be 0.226 ha/h and 75.33 %. The cost of operating of weedicide applicator for powered paddy drum seeder attachment to a riding-float type self-propelled unit was calculated to be Rs 1880/- per ha. The cost of the weedicide applicator for powered paddy drum seeder attachment was Rs. 21600/-. Hence, it is concluded that this machine will be a ideal solution to impede the proliferous growth of weeds and to reduce the labour cost and time saving.