Development of a Revolving Wooden Disc Single-Row Grains Planter

Abstract

A manually operated single-row multi-crop planter was developed for planting of different agricultural seeds such as maize, cowpea and soya beans. The major components of the planter include seed hopper, metering device, adjustable furrow opener and closer, drive wheels and seed tube. The planting operation is achieved by feeding seeds into the hopper. The planter was pushed forward in the direction of travel at an average speed of 0.15m/s, the furrow opener penetrated the soil creating a furrow for seeds to be placed. The planter’s ground wheel is connected directly to the seed metering device, and as the ground wheel rotates, the seed metering device placed at the bottom of the hopper also rotates, thereby releasing two or three seeds depending upon the size of the cells or the size of the seeds. These seeds are then conveyed to the furrow through the seed tube. The furrow was then closed by the furrow closer. The planter was designed to be operated manually by one operator. It was tested to plant maize, cowpea and soya bean seeds. The result showed that the planter covered the largest area of 486 mP2 P/h when planting maize seeds and least area of 270 mP2 P/h when planting soya beans. The capacity of the planter in terms of area covered was found to be high (0.0486 mP2 P/hec) when planting maize and less when planting soya beans(0.027mP2 P/hec) this could be as result of least inter-row spacing between soya beans plant compared to the other grains under the study. The least time(20.78hrs) and number of days (2.6 days) required to plant one hectare of land were obtained when planting maize, while the highest time(37.037 hrs) and number of days (4.6 days) required to plant one hectare of land were obtained when planting soya beans. The successful development of this planter will provide a cheap, easily affordable planter for the rural farmers. It will also go a long way in making farming more attractive to the youths, reducing the problem of urban migration by youths in search of white collar job, saving tremendous amount of time during farming, ensuring capacity utilization of available farmland, and finally increasing agricultural outpu