Development of manually operated maize planter cum vermicompost applicator for narrow terraces of Sikkim

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to develop a manual planter that would reduce time, labor and cost with increase rop productivity by maintaining plant to plant and row to row spacing. For the timely operation with less effort and drudgery, a lightweight manually operated planter is required for the uneven topography and small terrace. Hence, a manually operated maize planter and vermicompost applicator was developed for NEHR. Three commonly grown varieties of maize (i.e. sethi makai, pahelo makai and rato makai). The mean values of length, width, thickness, geometric mean diameter, sphericity and roundness of three varieties maize were determined for designing cell size of the drum. The independent variables considered were cell size 11mm, 12mm and 13mm and hopper fill level for seed and vermicompost (25%, 50%, 75% and 100%). The laboratory test was conducted to evaluate the performance and optimize the operating parameters of the developed planter. Optimum performance of the planter was recorded with cell size of 11 mm and 25 % hopper fill level. In next phase, the developed planter was operated in the field for ergonomic evaluation of the developed planter and various performance parameters and ergonomic parameters were compared with the traditional maize planting and vermicompost application. Average values of heart rates of the workers while operating developed planter and while following traditional method, were recorded as 114 bpm and 126 bpm respectively. The BPDR experienced maximum in both cases but traditional method observed extreme pain in backbone due to continuous bending posture. The ODR was found to be higher in traditional method range from 7 to 8 whereas developed planter ODR was found in the range of 4 to 5.