Performance Evaluation of Manually Operated Punch Planter for Maize Crop by Using Response Surface Methodology

Abstract

India is a world leader in maize farming in terms of production area with 9.26 million hectare and with a yield of 23.67 million tons in the year 2016. In India, maize is the third most important food crop after rice and wheat. A manually operated punch planter for corn was designed and developed to improve planting efficiency and reduce drudgery involved in manual planting method. The idea is to put the seed in soil by punching holes in the soil and drops the seeds in them. The field capacity of manually operated punch planter was found to be 0.091 ha h^-1 with the field efficiency of 80.33% at an average working speed of 1.58 km h^-1. At high operator speed (1.76 km h⁻¹) and large seed metering cell size (12 mm), the missing index increases, whereas it decreases under high hopper fill level (100%) and low operator speed (1.4 km h⁻¹) due to improved seed flow consistency. The multiple index rises with larger cell size (11 to 12 mm) and higher speed (1.40 to 1.76 km h⁻¹), but drops to its lowest when both operator speed and hopper fill level are reduced. Increasing seed cell size from 10 to 12 mm enhances the quality feed index, while increasing operating speed from 1.4 to 1.76 km h⁻¹ reduces it. The hourly cost of operation and cost of operation per ha were computed to be Rs 33.20 hr^-1 and Rs 364.83 ha^-1 respectively using manually operated punch planter. The cost of operation for traditional method of sowing was Rs.2500 ha^-1.