DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF MANUALLY OPERATED CONO-WEEDER FOR PADDY CROP BY HITESH B. SHAKYA M.Tech (Agril. Engg.) COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY ANAND AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY GODHRA-389 001, GUJARAT OCTOBER-2016 (REG. No. 04-2074-2012) DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF MANUALLY OPERATED CONO-WEEDER FOR PADDY CROP A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE ANAND AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF Doctor of Philosophy IN AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING (FARM MACHINERY AND POWER ENGINEERING) BY HITESH B. SHAKYA M.TECH. (AGRIL. ENGG.) COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY ANAND AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY GODHRA-389 001, GUJARAT OCTOBER-2016 (REG. No. 04-2074-2012) Dedicated To My Beloved Parents Abstract DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF MANUALLY OPERATED CONO-WEEDER FOR PADDY CROP Name of Student Major Advisor HITESHKUMAR BABUBHAI SHAKYA Dr. R.SWARNKAR Reg. No. 04-2074-2012 COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY ANAND AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY GODHRA – 369 001 ABSTRACT In middle Gujarat region, weeding operation in wetland paddy is largely done by hand or Khurpi. Another method is the use of mechanical weeders viz., manual or power weeders i.e. engine or tractor operated weeder. Power weeder is not suitable for wetland condition due to increased weight and operational difficulties in puddle field condition. Japanese paddy weeder and TNAU conoweeder are the package equipments and largely adopted by the farmers of the region. Study was conducted to know the design features of Japanese paddy weeder and TNAU conoweeder and compared with hand weeding tools “khurpi” in SRI paddy crop. Results revealed that hand weeding by khurpi was found tedious, time consuming and laborious, Japanese paddy weeder required more numbers of labours and incorporation of weeds into the soil, aeration to the root zone of crop and churning capacity was found very poor. TNAU conoweeder was found more effective in incorporating weeds into the soil, aerating the root zone of crop and churning of soil. Even though, it was found drudgerious, time consuming and faced operational instability with frequent clogging of soil around weeding cone and blades. To offset this problem, different weeding units were designed considering diameter of weeding cones as 40 mm, 55 mm,70 mm, 85 mm and 100 mm and different blade angles as 0° ,15°, 30°, 45° and 60° as per two variable five factor centre composite design in response surface methodology. Serrated bladed and plain bladed weeding units were developed in such a manner that angle and length of i cone was kept unchanged as 40° and 130 mm respectively. The developed weeding units were tested in field condition to evaluate its performance. The performance of serrated bladed and plain bladed weeding unit was observed in terms of draft, power, field capacity, weeding efficiency, plant damage, clogging, performance index and cost of operation. The performance analysis was carried out with Response Surface Methodology. Statistical significance of the terms was examined by analysis of variance (ANOVA) for each response using centre composite design. The significance of all terms in the polynomial was judged statistically by computing the F-value at probability (P) of 0.1 to 0.01. A complete second order quadratic model employed to fit the data and adequacy of the model was tested. Optimization of the process parameters was done by partially differentiating the model with respect to each parameter, equating to zero and simultaneously solving the resulting function. The regression coefficients were used to make statistical calculation to generate three- dimensional plots for the regression model. The performances of the developed serrated and plain bladed weeding units were optimized for 100 mm cone diameter and blade angle 29.37° and 30.29° respectively. Therefore, a common value of cone diameter 100 mm and blade angle 300 may be chosen for serrated bladed and plain bladed weeding units considering the constraints in fabrication for the development of the weeding units. The overall best performance results were obtained for serrated bladed weeding unit than plain bladed weeding unit with higher performance index, soil volume disturbed and lower draft and power requirement as 3305.12, 8.42 m3 h-1, 12.78 kgf and 0.086 hp respectively. Thus, serrated bladed weeding unit of 100 mm cone diameter and 30° blade angle may be chosen for the development of cono-weeder and it was fabricated from required standard material. The values of different dependent parameters on this was compared with one of the most popular manually operated weeder i.e. TNAU conoweeder. The comparison of the performance of developed cono-weeder with TNAU conoweeder in terms of different dependent parameters draft, power, field capacity, weeding efficiency, plant damage, clogging, soil volume disturbed, performance index, cost of operation and crop growth parameters (plant height, panicle length and yield) was carried out by field experiment in three replications. ii The result revealed that the developed cono-weeder was found more suitable for paddy weeding due to highest weeding efficiency 87.77 %, field capacity 0.026 ha h-1 and maximum soil volume disturbed 6.49 m3 h-1. The draft and power requirement were found lower as 17.94 kgf and 0.094 hp respectively. Plant damage, numbers of clogging and cost of operation were also found lower as 4.58 %, 3 and 1107.90 ` ha-1 respectively. The overall performance of equipments can be computed in term of performance index and the highest performance index 2300 was observed of the developed cono-weeder. The average value of different crop parameters like plant height, length of panicle and yield were obtained for developed cono-weeder as 84.70 cm, 20.44 cm and 4138.33 kg ha-1 and for TNAU conoweeder as 83.18 cm, 20.27 cm and 4125.53 kg ha-1respectively, which indicated that the effect of equipment on crop growth parameters was non-significant. The developed serrated bladed cono-weeder was ergonomically evaluated and compared with TNAU conoweeder. The working heart rate for male and female subjects were observed lower i.e. 122 beats min-1 and 125 beats min-1 respectively for weeding operation with developed conoweeder as compared to the weeding operation with TNAU conoweeder i.e 148 beats min-1 and 152 beats min-1 respectively. The mean increase in heart rate of male subjects over rest was 53.66 and 78.67 beats min-1 for weeding with developed cono-weeder and TNAU conoweeder respectively and the mean increase in heart rate of female subjects was 56.66 and 83.33 beats min-1 for weeding with developed cono-weeder and TNAU conoweeder respectively.The average energy expenditure rate of male and female subjects for weeding operation with developed cono-weeder were calculated as 16.86 kJ min-1 and 17.82 kJ min-1 which was less than the calculated values for male and female subjects as 24.14 kJ min-1 and 25.59 kJ min-1 respectively in case of TNAU conoweeder. Thus, the work with the developed cono-weeder falls under moderate heavy work, which is under acceptable limits of male and female subjects in wetland weeding operation. Overall, the performance of the developed cono-weeder was satisfactory for wetland weeding operation in SRI paddy cultivation. KEY WORDS: Wetland weeding, Cono-weeder, Weeding efficiency, Performance Index, Energy expenditure rate iii COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY ANAND AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY GODHRA- 389 001 Dr. R.Swarnkar Mobile No.: +91-98250 53349 Professor and Head (FMPE) Email: [email protected] CAET, AAU, Godhra [email protected] CERTIFICATE This is to certify that thesis entitled “DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF MANUALLY OPERATED CONO- WEEDER FOR PADDY CROP” submitted by HITESHKUMAR BABUBHAI SHAKYA in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Agril. Engg.) in the subject of FARM MACHINERY AND POWER ENGINEERING of Anand Agricultural University is a record of bonafide research carried out by him under my guidance and supervision and the thesis has not previously formed the basis for the award of any degree, diploma or other similar title. Place: Godhra (R. Swarnkar) Date: 03 .10.2016 Major Advisor iv DECLARATION This is to declare that the whole of research work reported herein the thesis for partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Agricultural Engineering) in Farm Machinery and Power Engineering by the undersigned is a result of investigation done by me under direct guidance and supervision of Dr. R. Swarnkar, Major Advisor, Professor and Head, Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, Anand Agricultural University, Godhra and no part of work has been submitted for any other degree so far. Place: Godhra (Hitesh B. Shakya) Date: 03.10.2016 Countersigned by Place: Godhra (R. Swarnkar) Date: 03.10.2016 Major Advisor v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT It is a matter of great pleasure for the author to express his deep sense of gratitude to his major advisor Dr. Raghunandan Swarnkar, Professor and Head, Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, Anand Agricultural University, Godhra for his keen interest, most valuable and inspiring guidance and constant encouragement throughout the course of this study. I express my thanks to the authority of Anand Agricultural University to providing me an excellent opportunity to prosecute for higher study leading to Ph.D. in the field of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering under faculty improvement programme as an in-service candidate. The author gratified to record his sincere thanks to the members of Advisory committee, Dr. M.L.Gaur, Minor advisor and Professor and Head, Department of Soil and Water Engineering, CAET, AAU, Godhra, Dr. Navneetkumar, Associate professor and Head, Department of Agricultural Process Engineering, CAET, AAU,Godhra, Dr. Pankaj Gupta, Associate professor and Head, Department of Renewable Energy, CAET, AAU, Godhra and Dr. A.N.Khokhar, Associate professor, Department of Agricultural Statistics, B.A.College of Agriculture, AAU, Anand for their valuable suggestion, criticism and constant encouragement during the course of study. I find no words to express my deep indebtedness and appreciation to Dr. D.C.Joshi, Dean, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering, Anand and Dr. R. Subbaiah, Principal, College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, AAU, Godhra for their knee awareness of academic values and continuous moral support and encouragement during the study period for providing necessary facilities during the course of study. I express my sincerely thanks to late Dr. A.M. Mehta, Research Scientist and Dr D.B.Patel, Assistant Research Scientist, Main Rice Research Station, AAU, Nawagam and all the staff members for allowing me to conduct the experiment and providing all the required facilities for successful trial. I also express my sincere vi