Vol. 12, Issue 2 (2023)

Author(s):
Er. Manoranjan Kumar and Akhilesh Bariha

Abstract:
Turmeric can be grown in tropical areas that are hot and humid. If planting is mechanized then the area under turmeric can be increased. The planter will remove human drudgery during planting and also improve the quality of planting. Therefore, two row semi-automatic tractor operated turmeric planter was developed at the department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, RPCAU Pusa. The planter consists of a main frame, seed metering mechanism, seed hopper, ground wheel, furrow opener, ridger, power transmission unit and operator seat. The field performance of the planter carried out at three different speed 0.75 km/h, 1.00 km/h and 1.25 km/h. The spacing between seeds was found 22.00 cm, 22.24 cm and 23.00 cm at the speed of 0.75 km/h, 1.00 km/h and 1.25 km/h respectively. The missing percentage was found 10.35%, 12.02% and 15.43% at the speed of 0.75 km/h, 1.00 km/h and 1.25 km/h respectively. The theoretical field capacity was observed that 0.067 ha/h, 0.09 ha/h and 0.112 ha/h at the speed of 0.75 km/h, 1.00 km/h and 1.25 km/h respectively. The effective field capacity was observed that 0.059 ha/h, 0.077 ha/h and 0.09 ha/h at the speed of 0.75 km/h, 1.00 km/h and 1.25 km/h respectively. The physical properties of turmeric i.e., weight, length, width, thickness and moisture content were 23.81 g, 58.90 mm, 53.97 mm, 25.79 mm and 15.65% respectively.