Abstract:
Fertilizer application is an essential but costly management practice in sugarcane farming due to the labor scarcity for manual applications. A smallholder, accurate, easy to operate sugarcane fertilizer applicator will be suitable for overcoming such labor shortages. Therefore, the main objective of this research was to develop a tractive wheel-driven fertilizer metering mechanism to a two-wheel tractor mounted fertilizer applicator for evenly applying fertilizer in any field and at different speeds. The specific objective of this study was to evaluate the cost of fertilizer applications compared to manual applications. A metering mechanism was designed based on the sugarcane fertilizer recommendation of Sri Lanka. All the parts in contact with the fertilizer were fabricated using stainless steel to avoid the corrosive effect of fertilizer. Roller chains and sprockets were used as power transmission elements. Fertilizer dropping rates at different speeds of the tractor and the uniformity of fertilizer application (UFA) of developed fertilizer applicator were tested and compared to the manual application. Results concluded that the UFA of the new fertilizer applicator is 99.4% which is 13% higher than the manual broadcasting method (86.3%). Though the fertilizer dropping rate reduced slightly with the increasing speed, the speed of the fertilizer applicator did not significantly affect the fertilizer dropping rate. The cost of fertilizer application can be reduced by 55% using the newly developed fertilizer metering mechanisms attached fertilizer applicator.
