Development and Testing of Bullock Drawn Implement for Interculturing Operations in Sugarcane Crop

Sugarcane is one of the main cash crops grown in India. For increasing production and productivity of sugarcane, interculturing operations are necessary. Interculturing includes weeding, light earthing- up and final earthing -up. In view of this it was felt necessary to develop a suitable bullock drawn implement to perform the different interculturing operations. The developed bullock drawn implement consists of Handle, toolbar, shank, ridger for earthing up, and sweeps.

The developed implement was tested to evaluate its field performance. The average effective field capacities were 0.176 ha-h⁻¹, 0.152 ha-h⁻¹, 0.166 ha-h⁻¹ and 0.111 ha-h⁻¹ for weeding, interculturing, light earthing-up and final earthing-up respectively. The field efficiencies were 65.57%, 62.55%, 63.60% and 63.34% for weeding, interculturing, light earthing-up and final earthing-up respectively.The average weeding efficiency of the implement was found to be 93.36%. The cost of operation was Rs.45.59 per hour. The cost of operation for weeding, interculturing, light earthing-up and final earthing-up was Rs.312.26 per ha, Rs.345.37 per ha, Rs.393.01 per ha and Rs. 410.72 per ha respectively.