DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A SINGLE ROW GRAIN CROP PLANTER FOR SMALL-HOLDER FARMERS
Gbadamosi, A. L.
Department of Agricultural and Bio-Environmental Engineering Technology
Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.
Email address: lateefgbadamosi64@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
The primitive methods used by the small scale farmers for planting grain crops constitute a major problem for enhancing higher productivity and yield of crops as this methods of seed planting results in low seed placement, at irregular depth and irregular plant to plant and row to row spacing. In order to increase the productivity of the peasant farmers a single –row crop planter for small scale farmer was developed and evaluated. The major components of the planter are hopper, the meterins
unit, the drive mechanism, furrow opener, seed delivery tube, adjustable handle and furrow covering device. Field test was performed to determine the planting efficiency and field efficiency. The evaluation test showed that the planter has planting efficiency of 68%, 81% and 76% and field efficiency of 71%, 83% and 74% at operating speed of 1.8km/hr, 1.2km/hr and 0.9km/hr respectively. The conclusions drawn from the performance
evaluation of the planter revealed that the planter had best performance at operating speed of 1.2km/hr, followed by performance at operating speed of 0.9km/hr and minimum performance at operating speed of 1.8km/hr and above.
Keywords: Development, performance, single-row, planter.