Design, Fabrication and Testing of a Tractor Drawn Soybean Planter

Abstract

A tractor drawn Soybean drum planter was designed, fabricated and tested in the DESFABENG Company Limited, Bida, Niger State. The project was undertaken because most of the imported planters usually have maintenance and repair problems in addition to high costs of procurement that are not affordable to an average farmer. The major components of the developed planter are three drums with predetermined hole sizes at the exterior ends, a central rectangular shaft, spring soil openers, roller soil coverers, tractor hitching points, two wheels, and power transmission mechanism, and a frame. All these components were fabricated with locally available materials. Using three test speeds, the planter was preliminarily assessed for seed rate, soil opening, covering, and germination efficiencies. Results obtained indicate that desirable seed rate values of 47.7 and 61.2 kg/ha were observed for tractor/implement speeds of 20 and 16 km/hr, respectively. The highest germination efficiency of the planter was 81.3% at a tractor/implement speed of 16 km/hr with a corresponding soil opening efficiency of 94%.