Comparative cost and returns of tractor owned and hired farms in Tungabhadra project (TBP) area of Karnataka, India

Mechanization saves time in completing different operations, which gives the crop more time to mature, allows the farmer to be more flexible in his farming operations and facilitates multi cropping. At present in India, trac-tors are being used for tillage on about 22.78 per cent of the total land area and sowing about 21.30 per cent of total area. Custom hiring service (CHS) is a popular method of gaining short-term control of farm machineries. The CHS gained importance mainly due to rise in the cropping intensity and drop in average landholdings. The productivity of major crops is higher on the tractor owning farms due to timely and sufficient availability of tractor services and 61.67 per cent of large farmers and 11.67 per cent of medium farmers own tractors. The net farm income is higher on tractor owning farms but input costs are low on custom hiring farms. It may be due to the high fixed costs and variable costs on tractor owning farms. The tractor charge was relatively same for all tractor drawn implements, it was ranging from `135.15/h to `142.11/h. The cost incurred was highest for rotavator (`574.93/h) followed by cage wheel puddler (`491.58/h) and MB plough (`462.58/h).The small and medium tractor hiring farms earned more net income. This shows that it is better for smaller farms to hire tractor services rather to have their own tractor CHS would constitute a reliable tool for implementing specific farming practices and obtaining a reasonable income

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Not AvailableA study was conducted to optimize the operational parameters viz., forward speed, rotary speed and type of blade for development of a tractor operated rotary weeder. The weeder was designed using computer aided design (CAD) software and prototype was fabricated and operational parameters viz., three forward speeds (2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 km h-1), two rotary speeds (210 and 240 rpm) and three types of blades (L-type, C-type and J-type) were selected to evaluate its performance for weeding in redgram crop in field conditions. The results indicated that the maximum weeding efficiency of 92.5% with a field capacity of 0.42 ha h-1 and fuel consumption of 5.2 l h-1 was recorded with minimum plant damage (3.15%). The field performance of the weeder was found to be better at 2.5 km h-1 with a rotary speed of 210 rpm for L-type blade compared to other types which were selected as optimized conditions for rotary weeder.Not Availabl

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Not AvailableRotary weeding blade is one of the important component for a tractor operated rotary weeder and need to be designed in such a way that they have enough strength in order to avoid the unbalancing force on the rotary weeder. The application of computer aided design (CAD) for structural analysis of rotary weeding blades on the basis of finite element method was carried out using ANSYS-software for three types of weeding blades viz., L, C and J-type. The different types of weeding blades are geometrically constrained with preparation of solid model and the simulation is done with actual field performance rating parameters along with boundary conditions. Prediction of stress distributions among the blades is important for the designers and manufacturers in order to minimize the errors and breakdowns. The analysis showed that, the maximum and minimum principal stresses were found to be 439.35 and 9.09 MPa respectively with a total deformation of 3.05 mm for L-type blade. Whereas for C-type blade, these values were 729.9 and 38.84 MPa respectively with a 4.65 mm total deformation. While the maximum and minimum principal stresses for J-type blade were found to be 362.68 and 17.7 MPa respectively with a total deformation of 1.65 mm. It was observed that, the stress values were within the limits of the yield stress of the material (758 MPa). Hence, the blades designed and selected for the study could be adopted for the development of the rotary weeder.Not Availabl

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Not AvailableA tractor operated rotary weeder was designed using computer aided design software and prototype was fabricated. The weeder was evaluated for its field performance in cotton crop. The experiments were conducted at three forward speeds (2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 km h-1), with two rotary speeds (210 and 240 rpm) for three different types of blades (L-type, C-type and J-type). The better performance of tractor operated rotary weeder was observed at 2.5 km h-1 forward speed with rotary speed of 210 rpm for L-type blade compared to other types. Results of field performance evaluation showed that the weeding efficiency and plant damage of the weeder were 89.50% and 3.75% with a fuel consumption of 5.5 lh-1 with an area coverage of 0.43 ha h-1. The cost of operation for the weeder was estimated to be Rs.1357 ha-1 as against Rs.2500 ha-1 for conventional method of manual weeding. The breakeven point for rotary weeder was found to be 98 h per annum with a payback period of 2.3 years.Not Availabl

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Not AvailableA tractor operated rotary weeder was designed, developed and evaluated for its field performance in redgram crop. The weeder was designed using computer aided design (CAD) software and prototype was fabricated. The operational parameters selected for the study were, three forward speeds (2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 km ha-1), two rotary speeds (210 and 240 rpm) and three types of blades (L-type, C-type and Jtype). The field performance of weeder was found to be better at 2.5 km ha-1 with rotary speed of 210 rpm for L-type blade compared to other types. The maximum weeding efficiency of 92.5% with a field capacity of 0.42 ha ha-1 and fuel consumption of 5.2 lha-1 was recorded with minimum plant damage (3.15%). The cost of weeding with tractor operated rotary weeder in redgram crop was found to be Rs 1469 ha-1, which was 41.25% less as compared to manual weeding (Rs 2500 ha-1).Not Availabl

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Not AvailableThe bullock drawn engine operated high clearance sprayer was fabricated at College of Agricultural Engineering, Raichur. In order to increase the application rate, the sprayer unit was modified by fabricating a suitable width of spray boom with a number of nozzles along with the facility for nozzle adjustment. All the nozzles on the boom can be adjusted according to the row spacing and height of the crop. To develop the sufficient pressure for the sprayer, separate power source is provided by incorporating a petrol/diesel engine. The engine acts as a prime mover for operating the pump through v-belt pulley arrangement. The bullock power is mainly used for traction purpose and engine power is used for operating the sprayer uni

Development and evaluation of a tractor-operated automatic gun sprayer for cotton crop: automatic gun sprayer

A tractor-operated automatic gun sprayer was developed for the cotton crop. The unit consists of frame structure, spray tank, horizontal triplex pump, control valves, spray gun nozzle, pressure gauge, strainer, hydraulic agitator and actuating mechanism. The power to drive the HTP pump was taken from the tractor power take off (PTO) through a belt and pulley. The actuating mechanism consists of motor and worm gear reduction. Two motors with 0.5 kW each (12 V dc) were used to provide oscillation motion to spray guns and motors get power from the tractor battery. The rotation angle of the spray gun is 30° horizontally. Provision was also made to fold the spray boom while in transport. The spray pattern could be adjusted based on the application of chemicals. This study was conducted to determine the suitable nozzle orientation (0, 15 and 30° downwards) to field crops. The orientation of the spray nozzle was maintained by using the metal protractor. The laboratory experiments were carried out by using the actual cotton plant. The best nozzle orientation for maximum droplet density and droplet size as 15° downward. Leaf hopper [Amrasca biguttula (Ishida)] and aphids [Aphis gossypii (Glover)] control in the cotton crop after 7th day of spraying dinotefuran insecticide from the automatic gun sprayer and conventional tractor-operated gun sprayer was 87, 86 and 58 %, and 50 %, respectively. The total cost required to fabricate the sprayer was US$1008. The cost of operation of the tractor operated automatic gun sprayer was found to be US$ 4.7/ ha