National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS)
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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692
Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
A Power tiller operated cup type potato planter was developed and field performances along with operating cost were also evaluated. Potato planter maintains a single row of spacing 620mm and seed to seed distance 250mm. This planter singularizes the seed by a series of cups equally spaced that pass vertically through the seed box for taking one piece of seed per cup. The planter performs for mechanical functions simultaneously, viz., opening furrow, metering the seed, making ridge along with covering the seed. Four operating speeds and five seed sizes were varied to evaluate the planter. It was found that forward speed of 2.6 km/hr is the best in respect of uniformity of spacing between tubers. Field demonstrations were conducted at college farm. The average effective field capacity of planter was 0.12ha/hr with an average fuel consumption of 1.25 lit/hr. Potato planting cost and labour requirement by cup type planter and conventional method were Rs 2270/ha, and Rs5600/ha, and 4, and 45 man-days/hr, respectively. The planter saved 61% cost and 91% labour requirement compare to conventional method. Break-even point of the potato planter was 7.6 ha. The internal rate of return of the investment of the cup type potato planter was optimum at 8% df, which implies that one rupees investment in potato planter would give returns on an average Rs. 4.25 annually from the date of investment until the end of planter’s life. The benefit cost ratios of the investments on potato planter were found to be more than 1 which indicated that the potato planter was profitable.
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