Assessment and Economic Aspects of Pivoting Arm Intra-Row Weeder

Weeding is a tedious process and labor-intensive task, but it is a challenging task to do weeding in an intra-row zone. Manual weeding demands extensive labour and generates discomfort due to bending posture, time consumption, and the non-availability of labour at the peak stage. Chemical weeding affects human health and crops; though it is costly, it can increase cultivation costs to remove weeds. Mechanical inter-row weeders are available in the market and are working in the field in the row zone only, but for the intra-row, no such type of machinery is available in India. Still, researchers and scientists are working on the intra-row weeding mechanisms and machines to get a permanent solution. To overcome the aforementioned problems, a hydraulic actuated inter and intra row weeder was developed and evaluated in the field conditions. The performance parameters of the developed unit are as follows: actual field capacity, effective field capacity, performance index, time required to do weeding, payback period, break-even point, and the total cost of operation of weeding were calculated as 0.0768 ha.h⁻¹, 0.07725 ha.h⁻¹, 481.8, 13.1 h. ha⁻¹ and 3.17 years, and 3.15 payback period, respectively. In terms of operational efficiency and cost savings, the developed weeder outperforms manual weeding.