Development of a Low Cost Two-Row Groundnut Planter

Abstract

The groundnut seed composed of approximately equal weight of fatty and non-fatty oil. The groundnut cake (kulikuli- Hausa name in Nigeria) contains concentrated protein, minerals, and vitamins in addition research finding revealed that no part of the nut is a waste. The kernel without the nuts can be used as hay to feed animals like, horse or ash manure. Planting machine or planter that is normally required to produce more food is beyond the buying capacity of smallholder’s farmers, which result in low productivity especially in the production of grains. An improved manual two-row groundnut planter was developed and evaluated for its performance using locally sourced materials which can be adapted for gardens and smallholder farmers. The machine has the following parts which are furrow opener, handle, frame, hopper, discharge tube, metering unit, and roller housing. The machine was evaluated for field capacity and metering efficiency (3 hole metering devices) at different forward speeds. It was observed that the machine field capacity efficiency of was 82%. Using standard error bars the highest metering efficiency of 92% was observed at 0.7 m s -1 machine speed. The ANOVA (analysis of variance) shows that speed as significant effect on metering efficiency with a p-value of 5.44E-18. The planter could plant an average of five seeds per point. It is simple, cheap and the ergonomics of the machine was considered which makes it easy to operate.