Assessment of Farm Mechanization Level for Groundnut Crop in Junagadh District, Gujarat, India

Abstract

Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is a major leguminous crop grown in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. This survey work was done in the Junagadh district of Gujarat state. Total 45 villages from 9 talukas were selected randomly. A total of 450 farmers were selected for survey with 10 farmers chosen from each village. Data were collected personally by interviewing the respondents with the help of well-structured interview schedule, and it was statistically analyzed. It was observed from the findings that 57 % of the respondents belonged to middle age group, 27 % of the respondents were educated up to medium school level, 72 % of the respondents had medium size of family, 41 % of the respondents had medium sized land holdings, 36 % of the respondents had well source of irrigation, 79 % of the respondents had electric pump and 31 percent of the respondents had tractor. Of those interviewed, 70% used a tractor-drawn cultivator for the preparation of a seed bed, a blade harrow, and a planker. In case of sowing, tractor drawn auto-seed cum fertilizer drill (after monsoon) was used by 46% of the respondents. Mini tractor drawn multi-purpose implement for interculturing was used by 66% of the respondents. About 98% of the respondents used battery sprayer for plant protection. Tractor drawn blade harrow was used for harvesting purpose by 67% of the respondents. At the time of threshing, 99.56% of the respondents used electric or oil engine operated thresher in Junagadh district. Mechanical energy for different operations like seedbed preparations, sowing, interculturing, plant protection, harvesting and threshing was found to be 4419.5, 1543.20, 348.49, 131.98, 1072.33 and 658.62 MJ/ha respectively in Junagadh district. Survey represent that the mean farm power is 45.05 hp and farm mechanization level is 13.92 hp/ha in Junagadh district. Keywords: Groundnut, Farm machinery, Mechanical energy, Farm power, Farm mechanization level.