Performance Evaluation of Self-Propelled Planter with Electronic Seed-Metering System

In Indian agriculture, seed placement is one of most crucial operations as it affects seed germination, growth and the productivity. Further, in narrow terraces of North Eastern Hilly Region of India, uses of tractor operated planters and other conventional plantersare not feasible. In addition, commercially available planters use mechanical metering which has many limitations including, skidding of the wheel, non-uniform seed rate, wastage of the seed and higher maintenance cost. Therefore, a lightweight self-propelled planter is required for timely operation with less drudgery in terraced terrain with a vertical interval more than 1 m. The seed plates powered by electric or hydraulic motors can effectively prevent the seed irregularities caused by wheel slippage on the ground and vibrations, thereby increasing the working speed and improving seeding accuracy. In order to deal such issues, an ergonomically designed planter with electronic seed metering system was developed. The performance results were analyzed and results with minimum value of missing index, multiple index, precision index and mean seed spacing as 5, 3.34, 16.23 per cent and 10.76 cm and highest value of quality of feed index of 91.67 per cent were recorded at groove size 5.45 mm, 25 per cent hopper fill level and running speed 1 km h-1 respectively.