Refinement of a combination implement for dryseeding and herbicide application in rice

Abstract

The combination implement for dry seeding and herbicide application developed at KVK Palakkad was studied successfully. Several drawbacks of this machine were observed from the laboratory and field test results. The machine consisted of simple frame, tines, seed box, seed tubes, cup feed metering mechanism, power transmission unit, furrow opener, hitching attachments and herbicide sprayer units. Variation of seed rate in different seed tubes, damage occurring in the tine when an obstacle is encountered, cup cannot be adjusted with various varieties of paddy, clogging of seed tube and cannot change the spacing between rows are the problems raised during the test. By correcting all these faults new machine were proposed, designed, and fabricated. Refined machine can be operated by changing the row to row spacing either as 20 cm and 25 cm, cup feed metering mechanism was replaced by fluted roller for more uniformity, seed rate can be vary according to the size and seed variety, spring was provided in each Tool bar as a tipping mechanism. The effective field capacity, theoretical field capacity and field efficiency was observed as 0.3316 ha/hr, 0.456 ha/hr, and 72.7%. The seed rate of the machine can be vary in the range of 17-210 kg/ha. For better uniformity of spray the flat fan nozzles are spaced 105 cm apart with an overlapping distance of 75 cm.