Manufacture of a local machine to apply organic and chemical fertilizers for vegetable cultivation in sandy soils

Abstract EN

A local machine was manufactured to apply compost and chemical fertilizers for vegetable cultivation in sandy soils and evaluate its performance with the traditional method under different operational conditions.

The manufactured machine consists mainly of ridger, compost fertilizers applicator, chemical fertilizers applicator and a covering unit.

Performance of the manufactured machine was studied as a function of change in machine forward speed, feed shaft rotating speed and furrow depth.

The machine performance was evaluated in terms of field capacity, efficiency, uniformity of fertilizers distribution, crop productivity, power and energy requirements.

The experimental results revealed that the manufactured machine increased both the uniformity of fertilizer distribution and crop productivity and decreases energy requirements for both organic manure and chemical fertilizers under the conditions of 3.3 km/hr., machine forward speed, 120 rpm feed shaft rotating speed and 20 cm furrow depth.