*email: edwi012@gmail.com
The precision technology and equipments are used for saving and effective utilization of crop production inputs like fertilizers, herbicides, seeds etc. and reduced environmental impact. The metering mechanism plays an important role in controlling the flow rate of the fertilizer application device. Gravity fed method gives a large variation in the application rate between rows. So the current study mainly focused to develop a positive feeding metering mechanism for precise control on discharge rate of granular fertilizer. Fluted roller metering mechanism was adopted for the study to control the application of granular urea for paddy. Number of flutes on roller (8,10 and 12), exposure length of the fluted roller (10,20,30 and 40 mm) and rotational speed of the fluted roller (30, 40 and 50 rpm) were selected as variable for determine the quantity of discharge of the fluted roller. The result shows that the exposure lengths of the fluted roller have highly significant in the variation of discharge rate of granular urea than numbers of flutes and speed. The maximum discharge (1450 g per minute) attains at 12 number flute rotated at speed of 50 rpm with 40 mm exposure length. This discharge rate is quit high and not required in the case of paddy. The minimum discharge rate of 147 g material per minute obtained at the combination of 10 numbers of flutes rotate at speed of 30 rpm with 10 mm exposure length. Wide ranges of discharge rate were attained by the different combinations variable which selected in this study. So this new type of metering system is suitable for precise quantity application of urea or seeds.
Metering mechanism, Precision, Rotational speed, Covering pipe, Variable speed
