Development and evaluation of mechanical weeder for finger millet crop

Abstract

Finger millet (Eleusine coracana) is a main field crop in southern part of Karnataka commonly called ragi as it provides both stable food for the region and good fodder for cattles. Weeds management is a major problem in finger millet crop and are responsible for drastic reduction of yield. Weeding by traditional methods are laborious and time consuming which leads to high cost of production. Pertaining to this, blade type simple mechanical weeder was developed and evaluated under finger millet crop with 2 and 4 blade harrows for weeding 2 and 4 rows at a time respectively. The results obtained at 2 rows and 4 rows weeding condition, the weeding efficiency (88 & 85%), plant damage (2.5 & 3.6%), effective field capacity (0.108 & 0.144 ha/h), field efficiency (90 & 60%), fuel consumption (4.181 & 3.424 L/ha) and cost of weeding ( 572 & 447.42 ha) respectively.