Abhishek Kumar and Dr. Jayant Singh

Application of organic manure in the field is an important input operation in crop production. A tractor drawn subsurface manure applicator was designed and developed in Farm Machinery and Power Engineering Department at G.B.P.U.A &T Pantnagar Uttarakhand to place the manure at a recommended depth below the soil surface to improve the nutrients quality of soil. The nutrients and water are absorbed by the roots of plants from the soil for optimum productivity. Therefore the subsurface manure applicator was designed to place the vermicompost manure at a correct rate below the seed which often improves growth compared to surface applied manure. The performance of the applicator was evaluated for subsurface placement of manure. The performance of subsurface manure applicator was evaluated at four openings of the orifice plate of manure hopper, ranging between 0 to 70 mm and three vermicompost moisture levels viz. 13%, 21% and 31% respectively. The application rate was evaluated in the laboratory. From the result it was found that the application rate was increased with increase in area of opening of orifice plate and increase in moisture level of vermicompost was found to be varying between 1.90 to 25.18 t/ha. The average draft force requirement of the subsurface manure applicator at three forward speeds viz. 2, 4 and 6 km/h were found to be 338, 349.3 and 371.9 KGF respectively. The fuel consumption at three forward speeds was found to be 3.3, 6.7 and 10 l/h and the power requirement was 1.9, 4.10 and 6.40 kW at 2, 4 and 6 km/h forward speeds. The average theoretical and effective field capacities at 4 km/h forward speed were estimated 0.51 and 0.41 ha/h and the field performance index were found to be 81.17%.

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