MANUALLY OPERATED PLANTER FOR PLANTING DIFFERENT SEEDS IN SMALL AREAS

Abstract

Laboratory and field experiments were carried out to develop and evaluate a manually operated planter suits to plant some different seeds. The constructed planter consists of four main parts namely: seed hopper, feed device, furrow opener and covering device. The constructed planter was evaluated under three different types of seeds (sugar beet, zucchini and ground nut), five different cell diameters of 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 cm and three numbers of cells on the disk of 2, 3 and 4. The obtained data reveal the following: The laboratory tests included the determination of average weights of seed discharged from hoppers, percentage damage of seeds and uniformity of hill spacing in the row. The field tests comprised the determination of uniformity of hill spacing in the row, effective field capacity and efficiency, average depth of placement of seeds in the row, energy and planting cost.From obtained laboratory and field tests, it could be concluded the followings: The maximum seed weights discharged from the hoppers of 64.53 and 168.27 and 720.27 g were achieved at cell diameters of 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 cm and No. of cells on the disk of 4 for sugar beet, zucchini and ground nut, respectively. The minimum damage percentage of 2.57, 0.13 and 4.89 % were obtained at No. of cells on the metering disk of 2 and cell diameter of 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 cm for sugar beet, zucchini and ground nut, respectively. The maximum field capacity of 0.547 fed/h was obtained at higher forward speed of 2.3 km/h, while the maximum field efficiency of 73.65 % was obtained at lower forward speed of 0.8 km/h. The minimum energy consumed and planting cost of 0.278 kW.h/fed and 15.61 L.E/fed were obtained at high forward speed of 2.3 km/h.