Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF DIFFERENT MANUAL OPERATED WEEDING EQUIPMENT FOR PADDY CROP IN VERTISOLS

Bhagwan Singh Narwariya, K.B. Tiwari and Prateek Shrivastava

Abstract

The efficient and economical method for weeding has a significant role in reducing cost of operation and enhance timeliness of operation. In this study, three types of manually operated mechanical weeders were evaluated for weeding in the wetland paddy crop at Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. The field performance of three types of mechanical weeders including, rotary weeder (T1), cono weeder (T2), and power weeder (T3) was compared to hand weeding (T4). The transplanted improved rice variety namely PS-4 (Pusasungandha-4), was selected for this study. The results revealed that among the mechanical weeders, the highest effective field capacity was found to be 0.050 ha/h in T3 and the corresponding lowest value of 0.0094 ha/h were obtained with T1. Among the mechanical weeders the highest weeding efficiency (85.13%) was obtained with T3 and the lowest value (70.4%) was measured with T2. The minimum percentage of plants damaged 0.36% and 0.13% was measured with T4 at 20 and 35 DAT (day after transplanting) respectively and the corresponding maximum values of 4.23% and 3.58% were obtained with T3 respectively. The weeding operation cost was reduced by 18.9, 60.2 and 67.8% for T1, T2, and T3 respectively as compared to T4 (control method). Among the weeding method, T3 gave the best field performance; this suggested that engine powered weeder could be useful equipment in modernizing agriculture for small farm holders.