DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF SELF- PROPELLED DRUM SEEDER

Abstract

Rice cultivation is increasingly affected by labour scarcity, rising production costs, water stress, and the limitations of conventional transplanted rice systems. Direct seeded rice (DSR) has emerged as a promising alternative due to reduced labour requirement, lower water consumption, and timely crop establishment. Among DSR methods, drum seeding of pre-germinated paddy is widely practiced, but the conventional manually operated drum seeder causes operator fatigue and has limited field capacity. To overcome these limitations, the present study entitled “Development of Self-Propelled Drum Seeder” was conducted at the Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, KCAEFT, Tavanur. The study aimed to determine the physical and engineering properties of paddy seeds, optimize seeding parameters under laboratory conditions, develop a self-propelled drum seeder, and evaluate its field performance. Two rice varieties, Jyothi and Uma, were selected for the study. A laboratory test rig with a sticky belt mechanism driven by a variable frequency drive was fabricated to simulate different forward speeds. A factorial experiment was conducted to study the effects of variety, hole diameter, hole spacing, and forward speed on seeding performance parameters. The results showed that seeding performance was significantly influenced by the interaction of these factors. Among the combinations tested, the Uma variety with 9 mm hole diameter, 80 mm hole spacing, and 1.5 km/h forward speed was identified as the optimum configuration based on overall seeding performance. Based on these optimized parameters, a self- propelled drum seeder was developed by integrating a walk-behind power unit fitted with a 1.5 hp two-stroke petrol engine with a manually operated eight-row drum seeder. Field evaluation of the developed machine under puddled conditions showed an effective field capacity of 0.17 ha/h, field efficiency of 70.83%, fuel consumption of 0.28 L/h, and actual seed rate of 54.3 kg/ha. The study concluded that the developed self-propelled drum seeder effectively reduced operator drudgery while maintaining efficient seed metering, making it a practical and low-cost mechanized solution for wet direct seeding of paddy in small and fragmented fields