DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF MANUALLY OPERATED FLUTE PLANTER WITH FERTILIZER DISTRIBUTOR

Abstract

Planting requires careful control of seed planting depth and uniform plant spacing which improves crop stand levels that produces more even plant emergence for good crop yield. A manually operated flute planter with fertilizer distributor was designed and constructed to plant grain crops. The machine’s field performance test for planting maize and guinea corn trials shows that the planter was able to plant  with adjustable furrow opening depth and seed spacing. Average field seed planting space by flute metering unit for maize was found to be 34 cm compared to the theoretical value of 32 cm while it was 64cm field spacing against the theoretical value of 60cm for guinea corn. Machine draft requirement was found to be 149.5N and average seed filling efficiency of the metering unit was  90% at machine speed of 1.82 km/h. The average machine planting capacity was 0.18ha/h and fertilizer distribution could be achieved for drilling alone and not for spot application which will require further work.