Performance Evaluation of Power Weeder in Sandy Soils and Development of Weed Rake

Weeding consists of uprooting and removal of unwanted plants which grow in a field with a cultivated crop competing with the crops for moisture and plant nutrients. Weeding is essential to improve productivity of field crops. Manual weeding with local tool is most common practice in the vegetable crops. Suitable mechanization technology is needed to reduce drudgery and to enhance the timeliness of operation. Power weeder has been evaluated for its field performance in comparison with wheel hoe and traditional hand tool (powrah) taking into consideration their cost of operation in the farmers fields opposite to College of Agricultural Engineering, Bapatla. Besides uprooting of weeds, the removal of uprooted weeds will take more time and labour, hence a multipurpose weed rake was developed at the workshop of College of Agricultural Engineering, Bapatla. Field efficiency of power weeder, wheel hoe and powrah were 81.36%, 61.88% and 89% respectively. The power weeder had the lowest weeding time 20.24 h/ha, maximum coverage area 0.049 ha/h, over wheel hoe and traditional method. The weeding efficiency of power weeder, wheel hoe and traditional method reported 82.89%, 79.59%and 97.21%, respectively, with the cost of operation of Rs. 1676/ha, Rs 889/ha and Rs 3990/ha. Cost of operation of developing Weed Rake was very much less than traditional methods.