Studies on Mechanisation of Planting of Sugarcane Bud Chip Settlings Raised in Protrays

Abstract

Sugarcane bud chip planting is the latest technique of sugarcane planting, wherein the bud along with a portion of the nodal region is chipped off and planted in protray with FYM soil and sand. Studies on mechanisation of the planting of settlings from sugarcane buds raised in portrays were carried out at Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering—Regional Centre, Coimbatore and Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore and a tractor mounted two row mechanical planter for settlings raised from sugarcane bud chips was developed. It consists of mainframe which can be attached to standard three-point hitch arrangement of a 35 hp tractor. The metering mechanism, operator’s seat, furrow openers, soil openers and furrow closers are mounted on the main frame with necessary supports. The optimum speed of operation was standardized as 1.4 km/h by experimentation where the missing percentage was 2.33 %. The field capacity of the equipment was 0.15 ha/h. The biometric parameters viz., diameter of the cane, cane height, single cane weight, juice content and yield of the mechanically planted sugarcane settlings were on par with the manually planted sugarcane settlings. The juice quality of sugarcane from mechanically planted settling in terms of brix, CCS, sucrose and purity was at par with sugarcane from manual planting of settlings at the time of harvest. Cost economic analysis of planting with mechanical planter showed 40 and 85 %, saving in cost and labour, respectively over manual bud chip settling planting.