Enhancing Mechanization of Paddy Cultivation for Small Scale Farmers

Power tiller-operated machines may play an important part in paddy cultivation for small-scale farming systems because the average holding size is close to 1 ha and more than 86% of India's farming population is small and marginal farmers. A power tiller-operated strip-till multi-crop planter is currently being designed and tested in an attempt to mechanise paddy farming in small-holder agricultural communities. Production and productivity might be raised by lowering cultivation costs and improving input usage efficiency by raising the degree of mechanisation through the adoption of suitable matching implements for paddy cultivation in small farming communities. For smallholder farming that focusses on paddy cultivation, efforts are being undertaken to employ conservation tillage techniques using power tiller-operated corresponding equipment. The developed planter was tested using three different tillage practices: conventional tillage (CT), strip tillage (ST), and zero tillage (ZT). Strip-tilling operations utilised three types of rotary blades: L-type, J-type, and C-type. The created machine was assessed in terms of field capacity, fuel consumption, draft, seed germination, and crop production. Average paddy yield in CT was maximum (2672 kg ha-1) followed by ST (2556 kg ha-1) and ZT (2442 kg ha-1). The cost of cultivation was maximum for CT followed by ZT and ST.