ZERO-TILL FURROWER WITH GUIDER; AN ATTACHMENT FOR SUGARCANE CUTTER PLANTER

摘要

ABSTRACT OF THE INVENTION (to be given along with complete specification on separate page) Planting sugarcane is an arduous, labour-intensive and strenuous job. Judicious use of crop and energy inputs makes it possible to commensurate with ever souring cost of production. There is a hypothesis that the soil strip left in between planting rows is of least use to the plant saplings up to an age of 45-60 days after planting. It goes further that there is a need for proper tilth only within 10-15 cm vicinity of the cane setts or buds for sprouting. Besides number of unproductive passes of the tractor over the same soil-section creates ill effects of the compaction to the soil layer which hinders further improvement in crop-yield. This professes a technology for zero-till planting with no adverse effect on the yield of sugarcane crop grown within existing crop rotation. It calls for designing and developing a device to open furrow for planting in untilled/tilled, dry/moist soil. Zero-Till Furrower is provided with a single disc attached to the main frame with the help of specially designed hanger for opening furrow in untilled/tilled dry/moist soil. It is configurated at 20° and 15° disc and tilt angle respectively. These angles were optimized on the basis of minimum power required to yield desired results. Observations recorded during its field evaluation revealed no significant variation in the percentage of non-uniformity in width and depth of furrows i.e. 4.2 and 3.1 respectively.Guider is a free-floating device, which is provided immediately behind the disc to prevent drifting of loose soil in the furrow from its crest until cane setts are placed properly in furrow. It is an essential and integral part of the Zero-Till Furrower for planting cane setts in unfilled dry soil. Design details were worked out on the basis of placing 35-37 long cane setts/billets with 20% overlapping at 1.8 to 2.0 kmph forward speed.