Performance assessment of proto type weeder with different blades and its orientations
Abstract
Weeding is removal of unwanted plants in the crop which grow along with the main crop. They are strong and dominating competitors for crops. The major problems faced by the farmers to removing the weeds in different stages of crop period due to unavailability of labour. The weed intensity is more in field and root length also increased, due to that problem different blade were taken into consideration to performing the proto type weeder in the cotton crop. Therefore this effort is made to optimize the blades and their orientation. A proto type weeder attached with high clearance tractor was developed and tested in the field condition. Three types of blades were developed for weeding unit and studied the performance at different inclinations i.e. 50, 150 and 300 and various operating depths. It was observed that maximum weeding efficiency was 93 % and with a lower draft force of 76 kg for blade 1 at an angle of 150.
