1SRF, Division of Agricultural Engineering, ICAR-IARI, Pusa, New Delhi-110012
2Principal Scientist, Division of Agricultural Engineering, ICAR-IARI, Pusa, New Delhi – 110 012
3Principal Scientist, CSIR-CMERI Centre of Excellence for Farm Machinery, Gill Road, Ludhiana, Punjab – 141 006
4Technical Assistant Water Technology Center, ICAR-IARI, Pusa, New Delhi – 110 012
Agriculture Engineering Devision, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Pusa, New Delhi-110012
Online published on 13 December, 2019.
India is home to 1.25 billion people and is second only to China. Agriculture as an occupation is the main bread earner for 49% of the population of the country. Agriculture as a profession is becoming less remunerative day by day, more and more work force is moving out of agriculture taking Indian agriculture to crossroads. Hence, selective and suitable crop diversification is the need of the hour to retain farmers in farming in this critical juncture of time. With its wide variability of climate and soil, India is highly favorable for growing a large range of vegetable crops in order to diversify conventional cropping system. India has achieved an annual growth rate of 2.6 per cent in total vegetable production during the last 10 years; however, the average yield of vegetables in India is still lower than that of many Asian countries. One of the major reasons of low productivity is the low level of mechanization. Mechanized cultivation, along with other improved crop production practices, is critical and important to increase crop yield. The pneumatic planter was developed for precise planting of small and irregular shaped vegetable seeds with high singulation efficiency. High singulation percentage (85–95) was observed for different seeds and lower miss index and multiple index were also recorded.
