MTech

Rice is the most important cereal food crop of the world providing major
source of the food energy for more than half of the human population. Manual
transplanting of paddy is being replaced by machine transplanting due to the
drudgery and increased labour cost of the former. Four wheel riding type
transplanters are getting popular as they can ensure speedy operation. These costly
machines require an agro-economic analysis for their proper management.
Another handicap in the use of these machines is that they need to be transported
in another vehicle even to nearby areas, which results in increased cost of
operation. The development of a suitable transport wheel system is also needed to
reduce the cost of hire charges spent for transportation. The application of bio
fungicides like pseudomonas and the foliar application of micro-nutrients on the
mat nursery loaded in the seedling tray of these four-wheel transplanters will be a
boon to farmers as this can reduce the labour cost simultaneously boosting the
yield. Hence the development of an applicator attachment for spraying liquid
formulations of bio-fungicides and micronutrients on the mat nursery loaded in
the seedling tray of the machine, immediately before transplanting was also
attempted.
Economic parameters of three types of four-wheel riding type rice
transplanters, viz. Yanmar Vp8D (TR1), Yanmar Vp6D (TR2) and Kubota NSPU-
68C (TR3) were estimated considering the agronomic requirements of common
rice varieties Uma, Jyothi and Prathyasha. For developing transport wheel
system, 6-row Kubota make transplanter was selected. The wheel hub assembly
was fabricated according to the design considerations. An electrically operated
applicator attachment suitable for all makes of 6-row four wheel riding type
transplanters were developed and successfully field tested.
From the agro economic analysis, it was found that the annual fixed cost,
annual variable cost and hourly operational cost were maximum for TR1, followed
by TR2 and the TR3 respectively. The Unit Area Operating Cost (UAOC) was
dependent on hourly operational costs and field capacities of the machines. TR1
had the highest field capacity (0.4 ha h-1) followed by TR2 (0.38 ha h-1) and TR3
(0.33 ha h-1). TR1 had more UAOC than that of TR2 and TR3 up to the Annual
Operating Hours (AOH) of 395 h. At 395 h UAOC of both TR1 and TR2 were
equal. Beyond 395 h TR2 had the maximum cost of operation among the three
machines. Manual transplanting by labour contract required a cost of Rs. 10000
per ha and using these transplanters is economical than manual transplanting
whenever the AOH is more than 102 h.
The pneumatic wheels of 680 mm diameter and width of 100 mm were
selected for front wheel. The front wheel has wheel track of 1.29 m. For rear
wheel it has diameter of 720 mm and 130 mm width. The rear wheel track was
1.37 m. The maximum and minimum speeds possible using these wheels are 1.14
to 9.88 km h-1.
The applicator attachment had a 12 V electrically operated diaphragm pump,
LDPE pipes as conduit, five solid cone nozzles fitted on a LDPE boom. The
pressure developed by the pump was 620 kPa with a discharge of 1.89 l min-1.
The nozzles were selected based on the patternator studies. Five nozzles were
placed at an equal distance of 35 cm on the boom of 1.8 m, with a spray span
overlap of 14 cm. The droplet size was measured using bromide photo papers with
pigmented spray solution and IMAGE-J image analyzing computer software. The
droplet size at 50 cm height was in the range of 200 - 300 microns.
The field studies on effect of pseudomonas fluorescence application revealed
the enhanced growth of rice plants. No fungal attack was observed in the plots
which were treated with pseudomonas. The plants subjected to application of
‘Sampoorna- KAU mutimix’ had increased plant height, more number of tillers
per unit area, more productive tillers, more number of grains per panicle, higher
paddy yield and increased grain weight.