Development and field performance assessment of roller rake weeder

IF 2.5 2区农林科学 Q1 AGRONOMY

Crop Protection Pub Date : 2024-11-27 DOI:10.1016/j.cropro.2024.107051

Sapunii Sebastian , Karuna Kalita

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Hand weeding is labor-intensive and time-consuming. Although mechanical weed extraction has the potential to save time and money on labor, several obstacles prevent its broad adoption, especially in rural and hilly areas. Small-scale farmers find power weeders to be expensive and impractical, and the haphazard planting of crops further restricts the machine's usefulness. Labor-saving, regionally tailored weed control methods are urgently needed, particularly in isolated highland areas. Owing to the numerous drawbacks of the current weeder, a new weeder called ‘roller rake weeder’ consisting of a fixed rake and a roller with spikes as soil-engaging components was developed as an alternative to solve the issues. The developed machine was tested in the field for about a month. It was observed that the speed of operation was found to be optimal ranging from 1.9 to 2.1 km h⁻¹ with an effective cutting width of 140 mm. The actual field capacity ranged from 0.038 ha h⁻¹ to 0.04 ha h⁻¹, while the weeding efficiency reached 88%–95% surpassing the existing tools. The labor requirement was found to be 28.6–34.5 man-hours ha⁻¹, while the average force required for forward and backward strokes during operation was observed to be 68.4 N and 23.2 N, respectively.

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来源期刊

Crop Protection 农林科学-农艺学

CiteScore

6.10

自引率

3.60%

发文量

200

审稿时长

29 days

期刊介绍： The Editors of Crop Protection especially welcome papers describing an interdisciplinary approach showing how different control strategies can be integrated into practical pest management programs, covering high and low input agricultural systems worldwide. Crop Protection particularly emphasizes the practical aspects of control in the field and for protected crops, and includes work which may lead in the near future to more effective control. The journal does not duplicate the many existing excellent biological science journals, which deal mainly with the more fundamental aspects of plant pathology, applied zoology and weed science. Crop Protection covers all practical aspects of pest, disease and weed control, including the following topics: -Abiotic damage- Agronomic control methods- Assessment of pest and disease damage- Molecular methods for the detection and assessment of pests and diseases- Biological control- Biorational pesticides- Control of animal pests of world crops- Control of diseases of crop plants caused by microorganisms- Control of weeds and integrated management- Economic considerations- Effects of plant growth regulators- Environmental benefits of reduced pesticide use- Environmental effects of pesticides- Epidemiology of pests and diseases in relation to control- GM Crops, and genetic engineering applications- Importance and control of postharvest crop losses- Integrated control- Interrelationships and compatibility among different control strategies- Invasive species as they relate to implications for crop protection- Pesticide application methods- Pest management- Phytobiomes for pest and disease control- Resistance management- Sampling and monitoring schemes for diseases, nematodes, pests and weeds.