ABSTRACT: Experiments were conducted at the CSIR-Crops Research Experimental station at Kumasi, Ghana, to determine the effects of seed sorting and planting device on yield of maize in the 2014 major growing season. Two jab planters were used to plant sorted and unsorted seeds. The control treatment was cutlass planting of unsorted seed. One of the jab planters was imported from China; and the other was fabricated in Ghana. The experimental design was a randomized complete block with 3 replications. Planting one hectare of maize with the Chinese planter took about 10 hours, 36 minutes; the local planter took 12 hours 39 minutes, whilst cutlass took 29 hours 36 minutes. Seed sorting and planting device had no significant effect on maize yield. However it was faster, cheaper and economically more viable to plant with jab planter than with cutlass

F Nagumo

H Omae

P Osei Bonsu

R Owusu Bio

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Effect Of Planting Device And Seed Sorting On 
Yield Of Maize. 
 
P. Osei Bonsu, R. Owusu Bio, H. Omae, F. Nagumo 
 
ABSTRACT:  Experiments were conducted at the CSIR-Crops Research Experimental station at Kumasi, Ghana, to determine the effects of seed 
sorting and planting device on yield of maize in the 2014 major growing season. Two jab planters were used to plant sorted and unsorted seeds. The 
control treatment was cutlass planting of unsorted seed. One of the jab planters was imported from China; and the other was fabricated in Ghana. The 
experimental design was a randomized complete block with 3 replications. Planting one hectare of maize with the Chinese planter took about 10 hours, 
36 minutes; the local planter took 12 hours 39 minutes, whilst cutlass took 29 hours 36 minutes. Seed sorting and planting device had no significant 
effect on maize yield. However it was faster, cheaper and economically more viable to plant with jab planter than with cutlass. 
 
Index terms: Maize, jab planter, seed sorting, economic analysis, cost benefit ratio. 
———————————————————— 
 
INTRODUCTION 
Crop production in developing countries highly depends on 
primitive and inefficient tools such as hoes and cutlasses. 
This makes implementation of critical operations difficult 
and time consuming. In Ghana, one critical operation that 
farmer use hoes and cutlasses to perform is planting of  
maize and legumes [2]. Migration of the youth from the 
farming communities to the cities in search of non-existent 
jobs had created labour shortages for crop production.  And 
it is difficult for most of the elderly who are in agriculture to 
bend and use hoes, cutlasses or sticks to work.  Delays in 
implementation of critical field operations such as planting 
reduces crop yields [8], [7], [11]. In Ghana, farmers who 
cannot plant themselves depend on hired labour (planting 
gangs) to plant. These gangs plant in haste resulting in 
poor plant spacing and populations. Optimum plant density 
is a prerequisite for obtaining maximum maize yield [10], 
[5], [9]. Thirty samples of the same jab planter that were 
fabricated by [2] in Ghana for planting maize and found that 
delivery of fertilizer and seed were poor. Poor delivery was 
attributed to poor metering unit of the jab planters.  The 
seed used in the study were not sorted therefore seed size 
was not uniform.   The seed delivery system of a jab planter 
is a hole with fixed size. It was therefore hypothesized that 
seed sorting could improve efficiency of seed delivery of jab 
planters.  This study evaluated two jab planters for planting 
sorted and unsorted maize in the forest zone of Ghana.  
 
MATERIALS AND METHODS 
One of the jab planters was made in China (Chinese 
planter), and we fabricated the other planter (local planter) 
in Ghana. Plate 1  (left) is a picture of the Chinese jab 
planter. It is capable of planting medium to large seeded 
crops such as cowpea, maize and groundnuts. It is 
adjustable to plant 1 seed, 2 seeds or 3 seeds per hole.  It 
automatically plants if the planting tip is pushed into the soil 
and then lifted up from the soil. 
                                                                                                                                       
 
Plate 1: The Chinese jab planter (left) local planter (right). 
 
Planting tip 
_________________________________ 
 
 P. Osei Bonsu, R. Owusu Bio, H. Omae, F. Nagumo 
 CSIR-Crops Research Institute, Ghana; 2Kumasi 
Technical Institute Ghana; 3Japan International 
Research Center for Agricultural Sciences. 
Movable lever 
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Plate 1 (right) is a picture of the local jab planter.  It plants 
by pushing the planting tip into the soil. The movable lever 
is then pressed up to turn the seed disk and the open the 
planting tip. This drops the seed into the soil. The planter is 
lifted up and the lever is released into position to close the 
planting tip. Planting is continued by repeating the process. 
 
TESTING THE JAB PLANTERS 
 
Methodology: The experiment was conducted at the CSIR-
Crops Research Institute experimental station, Kumasi 
(forest zone), Ghana in 2014. The experimental design was 
a randomized complete block with 3 replications. Two jab 
planters (Chinese Jab planter and local jab planter) were 
used to plant sorted or unsorted maize. The control 
treatment was unsorted maize planted with cutlass.  Field 
for the experiment was ploughed once and harrowed. The 
quality protein maize hybrid variety Mamaba, developed by 
the CSIR-Crops Research Institute was used in the trial.  
Test conducted before planting indicated that the 
germination percentage of the seed was 83.  Maize was 
planted at a spacing of 80 cm x 40 cm, with three seeds per 
hill. A planting rope marked at 40 cm intervals was use as a 
guide in the planting. All other cultural practices for planting 
maize were as recommended by the CSIR-Crops Research 
Institute of Ghana.  A stop watch was used to determine the 
field capacity ( the time used in planting each plot) and the 
data was extrapolated to time used in planting 1 hectare. 
Data were collected on number of hills with seedling, 
number of hills with 1 seedling, 2 seedling and 3 seedlings. 
The partial budget and cost benefit analysis which showed 
the net benefit and returns to investment by the various 
treatment options were used to determine the benefits to 
farmers (CIMMYT, 1988) 
 
RESULTS 
There was a highly significant (P<0.01) difference in the 
field capacities of the different planting devices.  Planting 
one hectare with the Chinese planter took about 10 hours, 
36 minutes; the local planter took 12 hours 39 minutes, 
whilst cutlass took 29 hours 36 minutes (Table 1).  Using 
the Chinese planter to plant sorted seed resulted in 
significantly lower (P<0.05) number of hills with one plant, 
than using it to plant unsorted seed. Similarly cutlass 
planting resulted in few hills with one plant. Planting sorted 
seed with the Chinese planter resulted in highest number of 
hills with two plants (15208 hills/ha), but this was not 
significantly different from the other treatments. Similarly, 
planting device and seed sorting had no significant 
difference on number of hills with 3 plants (Table 1). The 
target plant population was 62,500 plants per hectare, the 
achieved population ranged from 43718 to 47987 plants/ha 
(Table 2) representing about 70% of the target population. 
Seed sorting and planting device had no significant effect 
on plant population, number of cobs harvested and grain 
yield. Presented in Table 3 is the economic analysis of the 
study. The average cost of labour for planting with the 
Chinese planter, Local planter and cutlass were GH₵ 
38.46, GH₵47.65 and GH₵ 110.10 respectively.  The 
partial budget analysis showed that planting sorted seed 
with the Chinese jab planter yielded the highest net benefit 
of GH₵ 3298.95 per hectare whilst cutlass planting yielded 
the lowest net benefit value of GH₵2846.4. Cost benefit 
ratio for planting unsorted seed with the Chinese and local 
planters were 65.62 and 52.56 respectively, the values for 
sorted seed were 68.63 and 53.92 respectively. Cutlass 
planting resulted in least cost benefit ratio of 26.85. 
 
DISCUSSION 
Least time was spent planting with the Chinese planter 
because it plants automatically with less human effort. 
Planting with the local jab is slower because it is semi 
automatic, requiring human effort to drop the seeds and 
open the planting tip. Cutlass planting is slowest because a 
lot of human effort is required compared with the two 
planters.  It must however be noted that in Ghana, different 
people plant with cutlass at different speeds.   In the major 
food producing areas, planting is a profession of some 
people (planting gangs) and they plant very fast with cutlass 
but efficiency is often very low. Cutlass planting in this study 
was done very efficiently by the field staff of the Resource 
and Crop management Division of the CSIR-Crops 
Research Institute and we estimate their planting speed as 
average.  Although three seeds were put in a hole in cutlass 
planting and the jab planters were calibrated to plant 3 
seeds, a lot of hills had just one plant and relatively few had 
3 plants. This could partly be due to the fact that the seed 
was only 83% viable.  Cutlass planting had lest number of 
hills with one plant probably because, those who planted 
ensured that the seeds were properly covered. The target 
was to obtain 2 plants per hill but in general only about 40% 
of the hills had 2 plants.  In jab planting, seed delivery is 
purely mechanical. We observed that if the planters were 
calibrated to deliver 2 seeds, only one seed is delivered 
sometimes. This explains why the planters were calibrated 
to deliver 3 seeds.  Poor seed delivery of jab planters could 
be due to poor metering unit of the planters [2] . The target 
plant population of maize in the study was 62500 plants per 
hectare, but the achieved ranged from 43718 plants/ha to 
47987 plants/ha representing about 70% of the target 
population. Results of the study indicate that seed sorting 
had no effect on maize yield. This agrees with findings of [6] 
in which maize seed size did not affect yield.  Jab planting 
in this study resulted in similar yields as cutlass planting. 
The jab planters are therefore viable alternatives to cutlass 
in areas where labour for crop production is scarce. Benefit 
cost ratios of 65.62 and 52.56 for Chinese and local 
planters un-sorted seed respectively shows that a farmer 
investing GH₵1.00 in the planters will recoup his/her 
GH₵1.00 plus an additional GH₵64.62 and GH₵51.56 on 
Chinese and local planters respectively.  For cutlass 
planting only GH₵ 25.85 will be gained in addition.  Thus it 
is about 253% and 200% more beneficial to use the 
Chinese and local planters respectively. 
 
CONCLUSION 
Results of the study indicate that jab planting is faster, 
cheaper and economically more beneficial. The planters are 
therefore viable alternatives to cutlass especially in the 
farming communities where labor for planting is scarce.
 
 
 
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Table 1: Planting time of plant stand of maize as affected by planting device and seed sorting. 
 
Planting tool/ seed type Planting time (h/ha) 1 plt per hill/ha 2 plts per hill/ha 3plts per hill/ha 
Chinese unsorted 10.36 9167 11667 3750 
Local un-sorted 12.39 8125 10625 5000 
Chinese sorted 10.34 5833 15208 3780 
Local sorted 12.02 8542 11458 4375 
Cutlass 29.36 5325 10833 6833 
CV% 7.2 13.5 28.3 15.3 
LSD (0.05) 2.06 2849 NS NS 
 
Table 2: Plant population and yield of maize as affected by planting device and seed sorting. 
 
Planting tool/ seed type Total plants/ha No of cobs/ha Grain yield (kg/ha) 
Chinese unsorted 43718 44958 3958 
Local un-sort 44,359 47802 3907 
Chinese sorted 47492 54978 4133 
Local sorted 44580 48208 3667 
Cutlass 47987 49021 3650 
CV% 19.7 10.8 24.5 
LSD (0.05) NS NS NS 
 
Table 3: Partial budget and cost benefit analysis of  planting device and seed sorting effects on maize 
 
 Chinese unsorted Local un-sorted  Chinese sorted Local sorted Cutlass 
Average yield 3958 3907 4133 3667 3650 
Adjusted yield 3562.2 3516.3 3719.7 3300.3 3285.0 
Gross benefit (GH₵/ha 3205.98 3164.67 3347.73 2970.27 2956.5 
Cost that vary      
Cost of labour for planting (GH₵/ha) 38.85 50.21 38.78 45.08 110.1 
Renting jab planter(GH₵/day) 10 10 10     10 0 
Total cost that vary (GH₵/ha) 48.85 60.21 48.78 55.08 110.1 
Net benefits (GH₵/ha) 3157.13 3104.46 3298.95 2915.19 2846.4 
Cost benefit ratio 65.62 52.56 68.63 53.92 26.85 
 
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Effect Of Planting Device And Seed Sorting On Yield Of Maize

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Effect Of Planting Device And Seed Sorting On Yield Of Maize

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