Lesson 25. Planting mechanisms for potato and sugarcane

Potato Planter:

Potato is an important crop in India. It requires lot of labour for sowing seeds in fields.  Potato planters are becoming very popular now a days that open a furrow, drop and space the seed pieces at various distances, place fertilizer to sides and below the level of seeds and cover seed and fertilizer to a desired depth. There are three main types of potato dropping mechanisms:

1) Automatic Planters: It consists of a hopper for each row and cups with chain drive mechanism. Graded potatoes are picked up by the cup and carried to furrow opener sprout and released in furrow.  A feeder roller connected to compensating tray which contains spare potato checks for each cup. If a cup is empty a potato is released from compensating tray ensuring a uniform seed spacing with no missing.  The fertilizer and pesticide can also be placed simultaneously.  It can plant 2-4 rows.  Its capacity may be 6000-14000 potatoes/hr.

2) High Speed Automatic Planter: It has two picker wheels, each having eight picker arms. Two picker wheels revolve only half as fast as a single picker wheel used at a normal speed.  High speed planting is done at twice the normal speed but picker arms do not revolve faster than the single wheel.

3)Semi-Automatic Planter: It consists of hopper, metering disc and furrow openers. Fertilizer application unit can be attached separately. Potatoes, from hopper, are placed in metering disc which has compartments. The metering disc is rotated through gear drive mechanism. The potatoes drop due to gravity in furrow openers.  Ridges are also formed by furrow openers.  It may plant 2 – 4 rows @ field capacity of 0.15 – 0.25 ha/hr.  It may be operated by a 20 – 25 hp tractor.

Sugarcane Planter:

It is used for planting sugarcane sets.  Desired spacing between row to row and plant to plant is maintained for sugarcane planting.  The fertilizer and chemical pesticides can be applied simultaneously. The machine consists of a hopper, two rotating distributor discs, two fertilizer hoppers, pesticide tank with a distribution value and two furrow openers. All these components are mounted on a frame and two wheels. Seed distributor box and applicator are powered from ground wheel through a set of roller chains and gears. Two persons are required to put sets in seed rotor manually from hopper.  Machine is mounted on a tractor.  Output may be 0.6 ha/h and it requires 4-6 men for field operations.

Last modified: Wednesday, 26 March 2014, 11:56 AM