Umesh S. Patkar and Rajesh W. Lanjewar
ABSTRACT: The planting, cultivation and harvesting of sugarcane is highly energy, time and labour intensive. Suitable techniques, systems and implements have therefore to be developed to minimize the above. However, a suitable machine for planting of cane to suit Indian field conditions is still a very challenging job. Most of the sugarcane planters developed so far are tractor i.e. PTO driven planters, which has certain advantages and disadvantages also. The main drawback of PTO driven planter is that when tractor is stopped during planting, the planter still feeds few extra canes at the same place, which is undesirable. In this paper, a single row sugarcane planting mechanism, an attachment to the tractor has been discussed which can overcome the above drawback. During preliminary trials, it has been observed that the planting of cane is uniform and depends upon the velocity and distance traveled by the planter. The planter stops the planting of cane when the tractor stops moving, i.e. the velocity of the tractor is zero. The planter feeds nearly the same length of the cane as the distance traveled by the tractor and is independent of the speed of PTO. The planting interval of the canes is uniform all along the cane planting length.
KEYWORDS: Planting, Tractor, Sugarcane, sett, PTO