Comparative Study of Power Tiller Operated Machines for Small Holders Farming in Conservation Agriculture

Abstract

Timeliness is very crucial in all farm operations in general and in seeding and planting in particular. Slightly delay in sowing operation may lead to tremendous loss in production, productivity and sometimes quality of the grains followed by plant health. Power tiller operated machineries play very vital role for small scale farming system as the average holding size is close to one hectare and more than 86% of India’s farming community are small and marginal farmers. Practice of conservation agriculture with natural resource management has made the use of power tiller or hand tractors very essential for small holders farming. The power tiller with matching implements is cost effective source of farm power and it also enables farmers to diversify cropping pattern and increase in yield of crops. Present efforts were carried out to study the performance of various types of power tiller operated machines for different farm operations in conservation agriculture starting from seedbed preparation to crop harvesting for various crops like wheat, paddy, maize, gram, soybean, pigeon pea, sunflower, groundnut etc. Comparative field performance parameters such as field capacity, field efficiency, operating cost etc. and machine parameters have been presented in this paper.