Design, development and field evaluation of manually operated rice transplanter for system of rice intensification Ganapathi D.*, Kumar A. Surendra Department of Agricultural Machinery Research Centre, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India-641003 *Corresponding author: durairaj.ganapathy@gmail.com
Online published on 20 November, 2015. Abstract A 2-row plug type rice transplanter with revolving magazine metering mechanism was developed and field evaluated for rice (Oryza sativa) crop. The seedlings of rice crop were grown in paper pot (80GSM). Plug technology was developed for the efficient production of high-quality seedlings for transplanting. Seedling parameters like root length, plant height, stem thickness and stem width and machine parameters like plant to plant spacing, planting depth, field capacity, field efficiency, total time of operation, speed of operation were recorded during field evaluation. The cost and time saved over manual transplanting without considering paddy seed cost was about 59.9 and 79.85 per cent. The cost of transplanting with considering seed cost was  3101 h−1. The field efficiency and field capacity of the transplanter was observed to be 83.22% and 0.014 ha h−1 respectively. Highlights Plug type technology is used to develop manually operated rice transplanter. Manually operated rice transplanter field capacity and field efficiency is 0.014 ha h−1 83.22% respectively. The cost and time saved over manual transplanting is 59.9 and 79.85% respectively.
Top Keywords Transplanter, rice, SRI, Pot seedling, 2-row transplanter. Top |