Development, Testing and Evaluation of Manually Operated Single Row Cotton Planter

Cotton planting is conventionally done by manual dibbling. The seeds are dibbled in lines at a depth of 30 mm with two seeds per hill maintaining the desired spacing between the rows and plants. The labour requirement for planting cotton is high (15 %) which is next to harvesting operation (44 %). This results higher cost of cultivation. Moreover, the traditional planting method is tedious, causing fatigue and backache due to the longer hours required for careful hand metering of seeds if crowding or bunching is to be avoided. Timely sowing has a dominant effect on germination of seed, plant growth and also plant population in the field. Modern farming calls for careful sowing to get the highest yield. The sowing operation involves opening the furrow to the proper depth, meter the seed, placing the seed in the furrow in an acceptable pattern and covering the seed and compacting the soil around the seed to proper degree. Now a day, there is scarcity to find labours in required numbers and at desired price. On another side this Single Row Cotton Planter have labour requirement of 2 (max.) and have more accuracy in sowing, time saving and cost effective.

Er. Rangapara Dineshkumar is Associate Scientist at Sardar Patel Renewable Energy Research Institute, V V Nagar, India. He had completed his M.Tech (Agril. Engg.) from Anand agricultural university. He has been awarded Vice-chancellor’s Gold Medal for the best overall performance (Best Student of the Year) in B.Tech (Agril. Engg.) Degree.