PANT FERTILIZER BAND PLACEMENT CUM EARTHING UP MACHINE

Earthing up is an essential operation especially in maize and sugarcane crop. This prevents the plant from lodging and provides better standability. Moreover, it also provides anchorage of the lower whorls of adventitious roots above the soil level which then function as absorbing roots. Earthing up improves yield but is labor intensive and it is done by hand with a hoe, spade etc. by farmers.

Salient features:

Machine designed to perform continuous placement of fertilizer along the row crop, earthing up and cutting weeds operation, simultaneously

Experimental data on maize revealed that mechanized earthing produced 23.7 and 13.0% more grain yield than no earthing and inter-cultivation, respectively.

Saving in cost of about Rs. 5000/ha.

Top dressing of urea fertilizer at 50 to 100 mm from the plant

Urea fertilizer application rate range from 60 to 250 Kg/ha

About 40% saving in irrigation time

Operated by tractor of about 26 kW and above

Field capacity of machine 0.65 to 0.76 ha/h

Fuel consumption 6-7 l/h

Pant wing subsoiler with leading tines was developed in the department which is used for breaking of soil hard pan and subsoil loosening. Subsoil compaction is caused by movement of heavy machineries like combine harvesters, tractors and other heavy farm equipment as well as by natural processes. One of the reasons for stagnation in productivity of crops at certain location may be due to presence of compacted soil layers. A comprehensive review on subsoiling and its effect on soil properties and yield response of various crops revealed substantial increase in their yields over a wide range of soil types. Subsoiling improves soil structure by establishing a system of deep cracks and fissures in the subsoil which aid the downward movement of water, air and roots through a greater depth of soil profile.

Specifications:

• Field Capacity: 0.2 ha/h
• Depth: upto 55 cm
• Power source: > 45 kW tractor
• Fertilizer placement: differential depth

Pant Subsoiler-cum-Vermicompost and Soil Amendments Applicator’ was designed and developed in the Department of Farm Machinery & Power Engineering. The developed equipment is capable of placing organic manure (vermicompost, FYM etc.) and inorganic fertilizers as well as soil amendments (lime, gypsum, rice-husk etc.) at depths varying from 20-40 cm. The equipment consists of a straight leg winged suboiling tine, a fertilizer hopper with vertical screw conveyer for metering, power transmission to the metering system through tractor PTO and a gear reduction unit, a pair of depth control wheels and a rectangular frame with hitching arrangement. Breaking of subsoil pan as well as applying organic manures and inorganic fertilizers in subsoil zone is necessary to improve its structure and nutrient uptake.

The application rates of vermicompost at different states viz. original, adding water (moist) and air dried at different forward speed of tractor i.e. 2.0, 2.5, 3.0 and 3.5 km/h is 2.84, 2.46, 1.79, 1.27 t/ha, and 1.79, 1.35, 1.25, 0.81 t/ha, and 3.01, 2.59, 1.97, 1.44 t/ha, respectively.

Pant axial flow multi-crop thresher for hilly region is developed in the department and works on axial flow principle. Farmers in hill region use conventional method like hand beating, trampling under animal feet for threshing crops which is tiresome, time consuming and labour intensive process. Therefore, development of small multi-crop thresher reduced the human drudgery, saved time and labour.
The developed thresher can be used for threshing of cowpea (lobiya), soybean, blackgram, wheat and paddy and the performance was satisfactory.

Specifications:

Capacity: 90- 130 kg/h

Weight: 125-150 kg

Power source: Single phase 1.5 kW electric motor/diesel engine

Material of Make: Mild steel

Approximate cost of one unit: Rs 60000=00

Threshing Efficiency: 98.5%

Cleaning Efficiency: 98.5%

MoU signed with Jaidgurudev Industries, Rudrapur for manufacturing

Rice and wheat are the two major crops grown continuously one after another in India especially in Indo-Gangetic plain. Tillage is a major farm operation which demands high input energy for seedbed preparation having good tilth. After the harvest of rice, generally, the fields are prepared by operating disc harrow, six to eight times or even more, in combine harvested fields. This involves both time and money of the farmer and often wheat sowing gets delayed resulting into lesser yield. Therefore, to set aside this problem a drill popularly known as Pantnagar Zero-Till Ferti-Seed Drill was developed in the department of Farm machinery and Power Engineering for sowing of wheat directly in paddy harvested field without preparing the seedbed. Pantnagar zero-till drill resembles like other common ferti-seed drills available in the market. The speciality of this drill is its inverted-T type furrow openers which opens a narrow slit in moist soil instead of tilling whole soil like in conventional drills. Simultaneously, the seed and fertilizer is metered in right quantity and is placed into the opened slit. The slit is covered later on or immediately after sowing, depending upon soil moisture in the field, by operating a planker. Based on this principle, the department has also developed its animal drawn version with 1 and 2 rows suitable for hill farmers.

Other features :

This drill can be used both in tilled as well as untilled field conditions.

Drill is available in three common size with 9,11 and 13 furrow openers

Besides wheat, the drill can be used for sowing of rice, pea, lentil, moong and urd beans also.

Field capacity has been found between 0.5-0.6 ha/h.

Advantages of Zero-till sowing

Wheat sowing is advanced at least by one week

Saving of approximately 10-12 tractor hours

Saving of approximately 35-40 liters of diesel fuel per hectare

It is estimated that, diseases, insects, and weeds together annually interfere with the production of, or destroy, between 31 to 42% of all crops produced worldwide. Plant protection chemicals cover about 30% of the total cultivated area in India, of which insecticides account for 61.39% followed by fungicides (19.06%), herbicides (16.75%) and others (2.80%).

Most of the Indian farmers have marginal and small land holding which makes it difficult to operate a tractor drawn sprayer in those fields. Acute labour shortage along with higher labour wages makes manual spraying costly. Most of the sprayers spray the solution from the top leading to improper distribution of the chemicals in the crop. The leaves and canopy that are exposed receive most of the chemicals, while those parts which lie beneath receive less or no chemicals at all. The underside of the leaves also go unnoticed during spraying. The insects or pests that remain inside or underneath the canopy cover are not affected by the spray. It is difficult to achieve under leaf coverage with normal spraying operations. Hence, this machine is developed to perform s top of the crop and under leaf spraying simultaneously.

The result of field test showed that, at 1.5 km/h speed of operation, the leaf area coverage is about 45 % for the upper part of the leaves and about 25 % for underside of the leaves.