Mechanization in farming operations are classified under following heads: 1. Land Leveling 2. Seed Bed Preparation 3. Sowing 4. Weeding and Interculture 5. Fertilizer Application 6. Harvesting and Threshing.
1. Land Leveling:
Mechanization is evident in leveling, bund forming, bed forming for gravity flow irrigation and several such activities.
For land development, bullock drawn implements have been developed and are commercially available such as Scoop, Buck scraper, U-leveler, and Float leveler.
2. Seed Bed Preparation:
Ploughing with mould board plough, followed by sprinkler, harrowing and levelling is enough for sowing operation and thus reduction in number of secondary tillage operation.
The traditional animal drawn country plough has low output. It also requires 3-4 tillage operations for land preparation.
In shallow and black soils, Bakhar or Guntake (Straight or curved blade harrow) is used. Cultivator and disc harrow cover more area and quality of ploughing is also found better. The mould plough, puddler, disc harrow- cum-puddlers. Peg tooth harrow, spring tine harrow and patella harrow operated by animal and tractor are better machinery. Disc harrow and cultivator either animal drawn or tractor drawn, have high coverage. Tractor rotavators save time and energy to the extent of 30-35% in heavy soils.
3. Sowing:
Seed drills or seed cum fertilizer drills (Bullock drawn or tractor drawn) facilitate line sowing and proper application of seed and fertilizer in the field. Thus there is saving of 10-15% inputs. About 30% loss of fertilizer is estimated if not properly applied. The animal drawn Dufan (Two row), Tifan (Three row) Enatigoru and FESPO plough (all Local sowing devices) have been adopted as these cover more area and cost less, these however require skilled operator to regulate the seed rate.
For precise application of seed and fertilizer, mechanically metered seed drill and seed-cum fertilizer drill, operated by animal and tractor have been developed and are being manufactured to suit specific crops and regions for sowing/planting of wheat paddy, coarse cereals, pulse, oil seeds, maize and potato. For paddy transplanting, manual, power tiller, and engine operated rice transplanters are undergoing multi locational testing and evaluation. Tractor operated semi-automatic sugarcane planters and sugar cane sett-cutter-cum-planter is available for use of the farmer.
Tractor drawn seed-cum-fertilizer drill equipped with inverted ‘T’ type furrow openers that is suitable for sowing of seeds without seed bed preparation, directly after paddy harvest under Zero tillage programme.
4. Weeding and Interculture:
Khurpi is the most versatile hand hoe for removal of weeds. It takes 300-700 man-hours to cover one hectare, depending upon crop, soil and weed infestation. The yield is affected to the extent of20-60% if weeds are not controlled. Use of long handle weeders, (wheel hoe and peg type weeders) reduce this weeding time to 25-110 hours per hectare.
5. Fertilizer Application:
Fertilizer is generally applied in the field by broad casting. If it is not placed in soil properly, it evaporates and only partial quantity is available to the plants. Potassic and phosphatic fertilizer have low mobility and unless applied near root zones, plants are not able to use it. Line sowing facilitates better use of fertilizer. Seed-cum-fertilizer drills and planters allow placement of seeds and fertilizer simultaneously either in the same row in separate bands or in different furrows.
In paddy fields, use of super granule fertilizer through super granule applicator allows slow release of nutrient and thus lower losses through evaporation and leaching. Drip irrigation system allows controlled mixing of fertilizer and other chemicals through irrigation water directly to the plant. Biogas slurry which contains more nutrients compared to compost/manure can be effectively applied through irrigation systems or mixed in soil after drying.
6. Harvesting and Threshing:
Harvesting and threshing consumes about 10-35% of the total energy for farming. These are arduous operation for the farmers. Delayed harvesting during kharif crops hamper seed bed preparation and sowing of Rabi crops to a great extent.
Major tools for harvesting and digging are Sickle, Spade and Khurpi.
These are easily available at low cost in the villages. Their output is low and effort required in harvesting operation is high. Self-sharpening serrated sickle has been developed with better material and design. It requires less frequent sharpening. Reapers operated by engine, power tiller and tractor have been developed and introduced for harvesting wheat, paddy, soyabean, and mustard.
Harvesting by combine harvester for the crops like wheat paddy, soyabean is getting popular day by day in the regions where labour shortage is there.
This helps in:
i. Overcoming labour shortage.
ii. Timely harvesting for sowing next crop.
iii. More suitable for custom hiring service.
Straw disposal has been the major problem where combine harvesting is in vogue. An exclusive straw collector and binder or straw combine harvester has been developed to facilitate straw disposal. More than 60% paddy and 50% wheat in Punjab is estimated to be harvested by combines.
Use of reaper and combine harvester is limited to less than 1% of the total area in wheat, paddy and soyabean crops and that too in few states such as Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
Some farmers still thresh wheat, barley and other crops by bullock trampling. This is very arduous and time consuming operation. There is considerable loss of grain. Most of the farmers use threshers, which are operated by 5-15 hp. engine or electric motors. The farmers use them on individual ownership basis or on custom hiring basis.
During seventies, the country witnessed a large number of thresher accidents. So Government of India passed an act called it dangerous machines (Regulation) Act, 1983. This act is a guide line for manufacturers, users and dealers.
Multicrop threshers are suitable for threshing major cereals, oil seeds and pulses. These threshers have provision to control- (i) Concave clearance, (ii) Threshing drum speed, and (iii) Blowers speed independently so as to reduce grain breakage and improve cleaning of grain.
These are preferred for threshing oil seeds and pulses like soyabean, peas, pigeon pea and sun flower; Paddy crop is easy to thresh by beating but losses are quite high. Pedal operated paddy thresher reduces drudgery to some extent. These have become popular in Eastern India. Raspbar type paddy thresher causes less breakage to paddy stem and thus straw can be put to better use. These threshers are very popular in rice growing area.
Low cost hand maize sheller is a simple device for removing kernels from maize cobs. Its output is considerably high compared to manual shelling. Women can also operate hand maize sheller easily.
Similarly rocking type manual ground nut decorticator is very effective for shelling of ground nut pods. Its output is considerably high compared to traditional method.
Manually operated cleaner, grader and winnowers are effective for cleaning of grains and even small farmer have adopted these.