Abstract
The conventional sowing method of onion seeds offers great wastage and laborious. This study aimed to develop a pull-type onion sowing machine for seedbed to optimize the sowing of seeds, reduce labor cost, yields better quality onion seedlings, and increases income of onion farmers. The machine was tested and evaluated, in comparison with manual sowing of onion seeds, in terms of seed delivery rate, effective field capacity, field efficiency, seeding efficiency and drawbar power. The cost of sowing seeds using the machine was also determined. Results indicated that machine’s delivery rate was significantly reduced to 5.33 g/m2 from 11.35 g/m2 This resulted to reduction in the quantity of seeds sown for a one-hectare onion production area by about 4-5 cams (1.6 to 2 kg). Machine’s field capacity (375.45 m2/h) was higher than of manual sowing (25.51 m2/h). Field efficiency at 86.94% is higher than 60% threshold given by PAES [3]. The seeding efficiency of 89.70% was statistically the same with three seeds per 25 mm hill spacing. The drawbar power was found out to be 0.15 5kW. The cost of the machine is $1,666.67 with a break-even quantity of 9,226.9 m2 or 138.11 cans of onion seeds in 0.62 years.
Highlights
Onion (Allium cepa L.), locally known as “sibuyas”, is commonly used as condiments to add flavor to food
The Philippines who ranked 59th among 175 countries in world production of dry bulb onions, has the majority of its produce in Nueva Ecija with 73,911.12 MT or 99.99 percent
The onion varieties planted in Nueva Ecija are red onion, yellow or white onion and shallot
Summary
Onion (Allium cepa L.), locally known as “sibuyas”, is commonly used as condiments to add flavor to food. It is one of the important culinary ingredient in the world and considered as medicinal plants used to cure cough, obesity, osteoporosis, diabetes, insomnia, hemorrhoid, constipation, heart disease and other diseases because onions are rich in vitamins and minerals that are essential to our body [4]. Direct seeding and transplanting are both adopted in the country. In direct seeding, it is planted directly into the field by manual broadcasting at higher seeding rate and labor requirement. Transplants are noted to have more advantages on economic use of seed, selecting healthy and vigorous seedlings, saving weeding and watering efforts during the early weeks of plant growth, and it enable the farmers to attend to the seedlings in a compact area [1]
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