Design and construction of an improved hand drawn planter for maize.

Abstract

Maize has been in the diet of Ugandans for centuries, it is the most highly cultivated crop, with statistics showing that maize was cultivated by about 86% of the 4.2 million agricultural households in Uganda by 2007. It is very nutritious especially Quality Protein Maize (QPM) which bas higher levels of essential amino acids and therefore is very good for children and is the primary food source in institutions such as schools, prisons, military and the police. The government of Uganda has prioritized maize as one of the 10 agricultural crops within the Rural Development and National Zoning Strategy. This positions maize to play an increasingly significant role in the poverty alleviation agenda of the country. Farmers are slowly adopting the use of improved technologies in planting, for instance jab planters and row planters which are human drawn. These technologies especially the manual row planters are still Paced with challenges such as continuous planting at a set intra row spacing, allowing dropping of seedy on headlands, point rows, water ways, terraces and other non-productive parts of the field. Besides, the operator (farmer) need to carry or lift the planter at the end of each row and place on the next row, which is very tedious and reduces on the effective planting time with increased planting costs. This work focused on the design and construction of an affordable manually operated single row improved maize planter. The design is to improve on planter performance by introducing seed planting control to optimize input. The benefits of this particular design includes; reduced agricultural input, optimum crop production; eradicate seeds wastage in between rows; ensures capacity utilization of available farm land; Saves tremendous amount of time during fanning. Performance test results showed that the control and metering efficiency is 98.90/0 and 75% respectively. The ergonomic gives the conclusion that the human drudgery can be saved a lot by using control system actuated at the handle. No investment cost difference found between the improved planter and non-improved one. Hence, it is advantageous to opt for the improved planter. The same design can also be used on animal draft implements.