ABSTRACT

In India vegetable crops are grown on a large area as it is “the second largest
producer of fruits and vegetables in the world. The production of vegetables has
improved from 101.2 MT to 184.40 MT from 2004-05 to 2017-18. In Chhatisgarh,
small land holdings contribute 27.8% for agriculture”. iMedium horse power tractors
ranging from 18-22 hp are most trendy among smaller holdings in India than the ilarge
horse power tractors and it is the fastest growing segment. But, 31-40 hp tractors costs
more than 5 lakhs. Power tiller operated vegetable transplanter was designed and
developed in workshop of “Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering,
S.V.C.A.E.T. & R.S., FAE, I.G.K.V., Raipur”. The developed power tiller operated
vegetable transplanter was operated by Husqvarna TF 545D Power tiller 9 HP / 6.6
kW @ 3600 rpm engine operated by diesel. The comprehensive dimension of
vegetable transplanter was 1200×820×300 mm. Mild steel was used to fabricate
frame, revolving metering mechanism, ground wheel, dropping tube, furrow opener
and other parts of vegetable transplanter. This investigation was aimed to develop a
isingle row power tiller operated “vegetable transplanter and evaluated in Vertisol soil
for its performance and precision in terms of plant spacing, missing index, seedling
angle, transplanting efficiency, field efficiency, fuel consumption, and cost
economics”. Prototype power tiller operated vegetable transplanter was designed using
CAD CAM designing and drafting software. The power tiller operated vegetable
transplanter was fabricated and tested in field for transplanting 45 day old tomato and
brinjal seedlings.

The machine was tested for three variable travel speeds 1.0 km/h, 1.5 km/h and
2.0 km/h and two vegetables. The plant spacing between two seedling in row for
tomato was 45.1 cm, 40.58 cm 37.62 cm and for brinjal 44.75 cm 40.37 cm and 37.36
cm at three different speed respectively. Missing index for tomato was evaluated 1.97,
2.79, and 4.1 % and for brinjal 2.21, 2.86, and 4.2 %. At three different speeds,
seedling angle for tomato was found 9.22°, 12.7° and 14.8° and for brinjal it was 9.8°,
15.2° and 16.8°. Transplanting Efficiency was analyzed at three speeds, for tomato
80.32, 78.68, and 75.76% was found whereas for brinjal it was estimated 78.33, 76.22,
and 75.1%. The “effective field capacity varies from 0.016 ha/h to 0.028 ha/h and field
efficiency varies to 70 % to 80 %. The fuel Consumption during operation was noticed
as 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4 l/h at the speed of 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 km/h,” respectively. The
average cost of operation of this transplanter was found 155.41 Rs/h. The developed
transplanter showed better result at lower speed i.e. at 1 km/h on comparing with other
two speeds. The average saving of labour was found 9.65% and saving of time was
found 79.65 % at 1km/h.