Vol. 12, Special Issue 9 (2023)

Author(s):
R Swamy, R Jayaprakash, M Sridhar, B Balaji Naik and S Naveen Kumar

Abstract:
Turmeric is an important commercial spice crop grown in India since ancient times and named as “Indian saffron”. In India turmeric was grown in an area of 2, 96,181 ha with a production of 11,78,750 tonnes during the year 2019-20. Telangana state ranks first in area and production of turmeric. In Telangana turmeric crop was grown in an area of 55,444 ha with a production of 3,86,596 tonnes during the year 2019-20 (www.indianspices.com). In Telangana state, the farmers are following conventional method of sowing for the turmeric crop which is tidy, time consuming and laborious process. The performance evaluation and cost economics of tractor drawn 4-row turmeric seed drill and 2-row raised bed turmeric semi-automatic planters were done to alleviate these problems and provide required technical information to the farmers. During the field evaluation, it was observed that the field capacity of the 4- row turmeric seed drill and 2- row raised bed turmeric semi-automatic planter (wheel based) as 0.189, and 0.083 ha h ^-1 at an average speed of 1.259 and 1.004kmph with the field efficiency of 83.72 and 79.305 percent respectively. The seed rate was observed as 1543 and 1239 kg ha^-1 for 4- row turmeric seed drill and 2- row raised bed turmeric semi-automatic planter respectively. The fuel consumption was recorded as 5 l/h for both sowing machines. The higher yield (dry rhizomes) was recorded as 1.11 kg m^-2 for 2- row raised bed turmeric semi-automatic Planter sowing method compared to 4-row Turmeric seed drill sowing method with 0.82 kg m^-2. As per the results the lowest operating cost was obtained for 2- row raised bed turmeric semi-automatic planter with Rs. 98,692.92 per hectare when compared to 4-row Turmeric seed drill with Rs. 1, 13,674.15 per hectare. The highest yield was obtained for 2- row raised bed turmeric semi-automatic planter even though it has obtained with the lowest seed rate when compared to 4-row Turmeric seed drill. The performance of 2- row raised bed turmeric semi-automatic planter has shown satisfactory results for sowing of turmeric.