Vol. 10, Special Issue 12 (2021)

Author(s):
Shishir Kumar Verma, Krishna Kumar Patel and Arun Kumar Yadav

Abstract:
An investigation to field evaluate three potato planters namely four row semi-automatic potato planter with rotary magazine (P1), two row semi-automatic potato planter with endless belt and fertilizer application unit (P2) and two row semi-automatic potato planter with endless belt without fertilizer application (P3) in comparison to traditional manual potato planting using spade (P4) was conducted at farmers’ field of district Etawah, U.P. situated in south-west part of India. Potato crop was grown over an area of 0.42, 1.12, 0.82 and 1.13 ha under P1, P2, P3 and P4 systems, respectively. The potato planting with planters was lesser time consuming than traditional system. The effective field capacity of the machines P1, P2 and P3 was 0.25, 0.13 and 0.12 ha/h, respectively. All the tested tractor mounted potato planters were found economical and labour saving of 87 to 90%, as compared to the traditional method of planting using spade. The planting by potato planter increased the yield by 10.5 to 19% (5.08 to 3.88 t/ha) over the spade method of planting. For accelerated adoption of potato planters there is a strong need of effective on demonstrations of these machines.