Suitability of a Self-Propelled Pre Germinated Paddy Drum Seeder for Women Farmers

Rice is the most important food crop in the world and is the staple food for more than half of the world population. Transplanting of rice seedlings, being a high labour-intensive and expensive operation needs to be substituted by direct seeding which could reduce labour needs and drudgeries with comparable yields. At present manually operated pre germinated paddy seeder is being used in certain rice tracts of Kollam district. Rice Research Station, Moncombu, Kerala Agricultural University developed a self-propelled paddy drum seeder by attaching the pre germinated drum seeder to a 8 row Yanji-Sakthi paddy transplanter. Therefore, a study was undertaken to evaluate the existing self-propelled pre germinated paddy drum seeder in rice growing tracts of Kollam district. Nine female subjects were selected, those having anthropometric dimensions conforming to statistical requirements based on the anthropometric survey. There was significant difference in heart rate in the operation of selected rice farming equipment. Minimum heart rate was observed in self-propelled pre germinated paddy seeder with a value of 120 beats/min. Studies showed that operation of self propelled paddy drum seeder resulted in higher rice yield (34.43 q/ha) followed by manually operated paddy drum seeder (33.96 q/ha) and sowing in lines manually (32.49q/ha). The maximum discomfort was experienced by the subjects in the manual line sowing of paddy with a value of 6.1 and scaled as More than moderate discomfort. Lowest overall discomfort rating was observed in self-propelled pre germinated paddy drum seeder operation with a value of 5.0. The B:C ratio was higher for self-propelled paddy drum seeder (1.43), followed by manually operated paddy drum seeder (1.32) and sowing in lines ( (1.23). The rest time, for achieving functional effectiveness during operation of self-propelled paddy drum seeder was found to be 10 minutes followed by 1 hour of work.