Development of Water Application Attachment on Seed Drill for Dry Land Farming

Dry lands contribute 42% of the total food grain production of India. These areas produce 75% of pulses and more than 90% of sorghum, millet and groundnut from arid and semi-arid regions. Thus, dry lands/rainfed farming plays a dominant role in agricultural production. This target cannot be realized from irrigated areas alone as the irrigation potential is only for 178 million hectares. Therefore, an appropriate technology has to be developed for dry land farming. Due to dependency on rains the sowing is often delayed in dry land area which substantially reduces the yield of crop. A water application mechanism thus designed and developed wherein water will be given to the seed at the time of sowing. This will help farmer to sow crop on time, which will help to increase the production by attaining proper germination of crop at the time of sowing. The effective field capacity of water application attachment on seed drill was observed 0.420 ha/h at average operating speed of 2.5 km/h. The field efficiency calculated was 70%. Seed germination per cent in water application attachment on seed drill was 5.60% higher than normal seed drill with no attachment. Yield in water application attachment on seed drill was 16.74% higher than seed drill with no attachment.