Development of Sugarcane-cum-Potato Planter for Mechanisation of Simultaneous Planting of Sugarcane and Potato

Abstract

Sugarcane and potato are the two major cash crops cultivated in the Indo-Gangetic plains of South Asia. Growing potato as intercrop with sugarcane has a synergistic effect on sugarcane, resulting in increased economic returns to farmers. In order to mechanise simultaneous planting of sugarcane and potato for intercropping, a new planting machinery named as sugarcane-cum-potato planter was designed and developed at ICAR-Indian Institute of Sugarcane Research, Lucknow, India. It was equipped with furrowers for opening of furrow and ridge making in between furrows, sett cutting unit for cane planting, potato seed tuber metering mechanism for potato planting, covering unit to cover planted sugarcane setts and potato and insecticide application unit. The designed equipment planted two rows of sugarcane in furrows and two rows of potato on ridges simultaneously in single pass. Picking and dropping of seed potato were automatic, whereas sugarcane seed stalk feeding for sett cutting was manual. Field testing of the developed planter was conducted at IISR farm in sandy loam soil. The effective field capacity of planter was 0.127 ha h−1. Average soil cover on sugarcane setts was 45 mm. Average depth of seed potato tuber placement on the ridges was 40 mm, and average tuber to tuber spacing was 192 mm. Developed machine-planted sugarcane at furrow spacing of 750 mm with average overlapping of 68 mm between the setts. The cost of planting operation with developed equipment was rupees 3160 ha−1 as against rupees 13,600 ha−1 in conventional planting. Saving in cost of planting operation was about 76% and labour about 90% with the developed planter as compared to conventional planting. Irrigation water use efficiency, yield attributes and total yield increased significantly in potato–sugarcane intercropping as compared to relay cropping of potato and sugarcane. Benefit/cost ratio in mechanised intercropping of potato and sugarcane with the developed planter was 2.57:1 followed by conventional manual intercropping (2.26:1) and manual potato–sugarcane relay cropping (1.84:1).