Published on Sep 03, 2023
More than sixty percent of India is depending on agriculture and State Government for development of agricultural sector has accorded high priority to elevate and boost rural economy. Planting of crops at proper manner plays a vital input to agriculture, endless efforts are being made to assure availability of quality foods grains to farmers in order to sustain the agricultural development and best vegetables to consumer end.
The paper presents theoretical aspects regarding the kinematics and dynamics of the crop planting machine and features we have implemented all that is required for planting of crops, which includes tilling, planting, fertilizing and ditching of soil all process in a single operation. The outlook and prediction of high growth of crop of cultivators are very high because intensive soil cultivation requires consistency and reliability. In the meanwhile, cultivators are also expected to work smoothly and cultivate large areas. Our design competes with all these expectations to aid cultivators.
They just need to load the crops to be planted in the rotating disc holes, due to the activation of planter pipe it gets planted automatically. Furthermore, our prototype model can be converted to full width cultivators with a few manual actions to planting. The future scope of this work; we have implemented all the process for single row. Whereas, our machine can only support for one single operation and this can be expanded by placing one or more planter pipe for cultivating the seeds at regular spacing.
Agriculture is the backbone of our country. There are various types of plants cultivated by our ancestors. Modern farmers follow the same types of cultivation method with improved techniques. Among these, banana tree cultivation plays the important role. Nearly forty percentages of farmers in southern India cultivates banana tree. Banana is a tropical herbaceous plant consisting of an underground corm and trunk comprised of concentric layers of leaf sheaths. At 10 to 15 months after the emergence of a new plant, its true stem rapidly grows up through the center and emerges as a terminal inflorescence which bears fruit. In India cutting of banana tree is done by tractor and decomposition method. This method is followed by farmers in wide range. The cutting of banana tree takes some time for stem to completely decompose.
Due to increase in the price of raw materials such as fertilizer, pesticide, farming equipment, farmers wish to gain the cost effective methods for cultivating their banana tree. By utilizing this method, they will boost the economic growth and thus in turns add up to nation building. The cutting process is made simple and efficient one by inducing automation. The traditional method of cutting banana tree is expensive and required skilled labor. A feasible machine is required to make the process easy. By utilizing the engineering principles and automation techniques, this machine will make the thing easier and user friendly.
As discussed earlier, the conventional method of banana tree cutting is done by direct decomposition and rotary tractor method. This process is tedious one, the proposed machine aims at making the things simple and easy. The main motto is to introduce automation and make this process cost effective. The process involves cutting of banana tree into pieces. The entire setup is mounted on the mechanical base with moving tire arrangement. Many farmers feel difficult to spend time and money. Thus, by making the machine that operates user friendly invokes many farmers to feel happy. The major human operation in the process is just to switch on the electrical power and by driving the machine by hand.
The working prototype consists of planter pipe which is translated linearly by means of pneumatic cylinder arrangement. The planter pipe consists of two lids which controls the intake and ejection of crops, in which one is placed at the top most corner of the pipe and another one is installed at the bottom most corner. The opening and closing of lid is controlled by rope and pulley attachments, when the planter pipe moves up at that time upper lid gets open and when its moves down the lower lid is opened. The loading of crops to be planted is done at the planter separate wheel which is powered by means of dc motor when the holes of the planter separator wheel had come to the position to coincide with the planter pipe the crop loaded is planted. The timing control is provided to a solenoid valve in order to activate the planter pipe in proper controlled manner.
• Improvement in planting efficiency.
• Increase in crop yield and cropping reliability.
• Increase in cropping frequency.
• It increased seed planting.
• Seed/fertilizer placement accuracies
• It was made of durable and cheap material affordable for the small scale peasant farmers.
• Lesser maintenance cost.
• The seed can be placed at any required depth.
• The plant germination can be improved.
• Requirement of labor also decreased.
• Seed can be placed uniformly in a row with required distance between plants.
• Provide proper compaction over the seed.
• It can be applied for both small and large fields for crop planting applications.
