Design and Development of a Drum Seeder cum Granular Urea Applicator for Rural Farmers in Bangladesh

Abstract

To overcome high human stress and drudgery in rice cultivation, a pull type manually operated drum seeder cum granular urea applicator was designed and developed. It was tested in laboratory and farm for both granular urea (GU) and paddy seeds. It has three drums for applying seeds and two hoppers for applying GU, which were placed over a shaft. A relationship was found between seed rate and filling condition of drum. The seed rate was 25.48 kg/ha when drum was full of seeds and it was 64.9 kg/ha when drum was fill up with one-fourth of its capacity. Metering device consisting four cups of 25.4 mm diameter and made of mild steel (MS) sheet was designed to apply the GU uniformly. Maximum missing percentage and over falling percentage for both the hoppers were found 3%. The average distance between applied GU to GU was found 40 cm. The effective field capacity of the applicator for applying GU was found 0.138 ha/hr at a speed of 2.21 km/hr and field efficiency was found 78.40%. On the other hand, the field capacity of the applicator for applying paddy seeds was found 0.33 ha/hr and field efficiency was found 86.75%. The machine was very easy to pull because pulling force was only 108 N. The weight of the whole applicator was only 12 kg. So it is very easy to carry from one field to another field. It is also very easy to operate manually and rural farmers can easily handle it manually.