“DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF MANUALLY OPERATED DISC WEEDER FOR GARLIC CROP”

Abstract

Weeding is an important operation for increasing the productivity of farm. For small land holdings and considering economic condition of Indian farmer, manual operated weeder is most suitable. The major Garlic producing states of India are Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan which produce 80% of the country’s garlic. In garlic weeding operation is done manually by khurpi and wheel hoe. Manual weeding is precise but requires about 900-1200 man-hours/hectare. Due to acute shortage of labour in peak seasons, weeding operation is difficult to carry out within short stipulated. With regard to this, a manually operated weeder was developed and tested. The weeding disc was made from iron plate and circular with a diameter of 30mm outer diameter. The desired height of the handle from ground surface is obtained with the adjusting and fixed with nuts & bolt at 0.961m height. The developed garlic disc weeder was tested under different moisture % present in soil