Techno-economic performance of imported kukje self-propelled rice transplanter

Fy Ruma,Ma Munnaf,Mm Hossain

doi:10.3329/jbau.v12i1.21406

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to study the performance of Kukje self-propelled rice transplanter and to study the economic feasibility of mechanical transplanting method over manual transplanting method. Each of the transplanting method had three unit plots of sized 20 m x 10 m. The field efficiency and planting efficiency of the transplanter were 83.33% and 95%, respectively. Percent damaged (3.33%) and missing (5.33%) hills were higher in mechanical transplanting method and percent floating (4.33%) hill was higher in case of manual transplanting method. The average labor input in mechanical transplanting was 1.4 man-day/ha where 25 man-day/ha was in case of manual transplanting. The total production costs were 53612 tk/ha and 49304 tk/ha for manual transplanting and mechanical transplanting methods, respectively. Crop established with mechanical transplanting method resulted in higher average grain yield of 6.66 t/ha than manual transplanting method resulted average grain yield of 5.83 t/ha. The net return of manual and mechanical transplanting method were 42310 and 61080 tk/ha, respectively. The benefit cost ratios (BCR) were 2.24 and 1.78 for mechanical transplanting method and manual transplanting method, respectively. Kukje self-propelled rice transplanter should have break-even area coverage more than 10 ha/yr for economic transplanting. The above result showed that the mechanical transplanting method is more economic than the manual transplanting method. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jbau.v12i1.21406 J. Bangladesh Agril. Univ. 12(1): 161-166, June 2014

Highlights

Rice is the staple food and the source of cash income for many Bangladeshi farmers
Mechanical rice transplanting is an alternative to the practice of manual transplanting and this method is faster in seedlings raising the crop
Kukje self-propelled rice transplanter (Details specification is shown in Table 1) and HYV BR-28 rice variety were used

Summary

Introduction

Rice is the staple food and the source of cash income for many Bangladeshi farmers. Bangladesh ranked fourth in respect of area and production of rice among the rice producing countries following China, India and Indonesia (FAO, 2011) and ranked 39th in respect of world yield in rice (IRRI, 1995a). Farm owners have been facing an acute crisis of labor in the peak time of transplanting boro paddy due to shortage of labors and excessive labor cost. The farm owners have to find the labors going door to door or they have to wait for the labors to finish the work in the nearby fields Sometimes, they have to hire laborer offering extra wages with additional facilities. Mechanical rice transplanting is an alternative to the practice of manual transplanting and this method is faster in seedlings raising the crop. It has become popular in many countries due to its several advantages

Methods

Results

Conclusion