Performance Feasibility and Economic Viability of Sugarcane Planter in Western Plane Zone of Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

Sugarcane is a major commercial crop consuming more labour force for planting. Sugarcane planting is a time consuming and labour intensive operation in sugarcane cultivation. In the traditional method in India, all the sugarcane cultivation processes are carried out by manual labour except land preparation. Sugarcane planting requires manual power and a pair of bullock or a tractor with ridger to plant sugarcane setts in one hectare on an average. Although number of useful machines have been designed, developed and being manufactured for cultivating sugarcane, but due to lack of extension and socio-economic reasons, still majority of the farmers are using indigenous tools and equipments. Shortage of timely labour availability and exorbitant wages compel our farmers to limit their acreage under sugarcane crop. Therefore there is an urgent need to mechanize sugarcane planting operations for reducing the cost of planting, as well as, for reducing the human drudgery involved. The field trials of Khalsa Make three row automatic sugarcane planter was conducted for planting of sugarcane at farmers’ field as well as at research farm. The performance indicators of the planter viz. field capacity, efficiency etc. were calculated. The effective field capacity was 0.38 ha/h with field efficiency up to 70.4%.