Performance Evaluation and Economical Assessment of Solar Photovoltaic Sprayer (SPV) Ensuring it’s Feasibility for Small and Marginal Farmers

The present study assesses the performance and cost-economics of Solar Photovoltaic (SPV) sprayer. The performance evaluation of SPV sprayer and its related economic analysis were contemplated for knapsack sprayer and manual operation. The field testing was conducted for different vegetable crops i.e. okra and tomato. The field efficiency and effective field capacity of SPV sprayer were found to be maximum i.e. 88.75% and 0.71 ha/hr at 200 ml/min discharge, whereas it was minimum (87.14%, 86.30%) and 0.63, 0.70 (ha/hr) for different discharge rate 100 ml/min and 200 ml/min respectively. Theoretical field capacity of SPV sprayer were assessed as 0.80 ha/hr at 200 ml/min (maximum) whereas it was 0.70 ha/hr at 100ml/min and 0.73 ha/hr at 150 ml/min (minimum) respectively. From economical point of view, it was concluded that SPV operated sprayer offers higher field capacity compared to manually operated knapsack sprayer and manual operation. The minimum operational cum variable cost of SPV per hectare was ascertained as ₹ 280.04 which is more cost effective than manually operated knapsack sprayer (580.10 ₹/ha) and traditional manually operated sprayer (11200 ₹/ha). The findings interprets that the performance of SPV operated sprayer (for discharge rate 200ml/min) was reckoned more economically viable and enables robust feasibility compared to that with the spraying operation conducted by manually operated knapsack sprayer and outmoded sprayer. The application of SPV sprayer in spraying operation can proved to be economically feasible for the small and marginal farmers of rural India having less assess to bulk machinery and offers ergonomic aspects suitable for male as well as female farm operator.