Modification of helical blade puddler for smaller bullocks of Assam

Land preparation is one of the critical farm operations for wetland paddy farmers of Assam. Bullock power still predominates the farming of Assam and traditionally, bullock drawn indigenous plough is used at all the stages of land preparation, starting from primary tillage to puddling requiring fair chunk of operational energy. Introduction of improved bullock drawn puddler has not been possible due to inadequacy of power of most of the locally available bullocks. A helical blade puddler (TNAU design) has been modified for making it suitable to smaller size local bullocks. The width of cut has been reduced to 48 cm from the original width of 67 cm keeping number of blades (eight in number) unchanged The original frame of the puddler has also been modified to obtain an overall weight reduction of about 50%. The test has been conducted at farmers field and results indicated that the modified helical blade puddler (Modhel puddler) would result energy saving of up to 33% in puddling operation for the smaller size bullock farms of Assam. The field capacity of the modified helical blade puddler was 0.04 ha/h. Puddling index obtained by the operation of the modified puddler was about 80% which I was almost comparable with the value obtained by power tiller drawn rotavator puddling (81%) and more than the puddling through traditional practices (78%). The farmers response regarding the use of the implements was also encouraging.