Comparative evaluation of maize planters in conservation agriculture under black cotton soil of central India

The present study was conducted at ICAR-Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal research farm to study the effect of no-till planters such as inclined plate planter and broad bed shaper-cum-planter on yield, energetics and economics of maize crop production and compared with conventional practices of maize sowing using seed-cum-fertilizer drill. The maize hybrid variety of DMRH-1303 was sown in kharif season of 2019 using inclined plate planter and broad bed shaper-cum-planter under wheat residue load 8 t/ha (HI-1544). The wheat was harvested by combine harvester and its residue was chaffed using shredder. The actual field capacity and field efficiency of inclined plate planter, broad bed shaper-cum-planter and seed-cum-fertilizer drill were observed as 0.31, 0.32 and 0.39 ha/h and 51.67, 58.18 and 76.47%, respectively. The energy consumption for shredding of wheat straw was 399.31 MJ/ha. The energy consumption was maximum in case of sowing with convention seed drill (1965.30 MJ/ha) including single pass of each cultivator and rotavator, which was followed by broad bed shaper-cum-planter under permanent bed condition (792.39 MJ/ha) and inclined plate planter under permanent bed condition (468.77 MJ/ha). The broad bed shaper-cum-planter and inclined plate planter saved energy consumption by 59.7% and 76.14%, respectively as compared to conventional seed-cum-fertilizer drill. The use of inclined plate planter (Rs. 652/ha) or broad bed former-cum-planter (Rs. 664/ha) could save 67% in cost of operation compared to tillage followed by seed-cum-fertilizer drill (Rs. 2017/ ha).