Research Article
Modification and Performance Evaluation of AAERC Tractor Drawn Wheat Row Planter to PTO Driven Wheat and Fertilizer Drilling
Merga Workesa*
,
Matiwos Belina,
Solomon Lemmessa
Issue:
Volume 9, Issue 3, September 2025
Pages:
85-96
Received:
2 September 2025
Accepted:
13 September 2025
Published:
10 October 2025
Abstract: Wheat constitutes staple food for more than 35% of world population. Regionally, the highest amounts of wheat are produced in Oromia and followed by Amhara. Planting is a process of placing seeds in the soil to have good germination. This method is notably slow, laborious, time-consuming, and costly, often leading to inadequate seed placement and spacing, increased labor demands, and consequently, lower yields and productivity. The former-developed and customized wheat and fertilizer planting machines have several issues, including the design of the hopper, the method of metering, and the fact that they are tractor-drawn, which results in uneven distribution of seeds and fertilizers due to the use of a land wheel for metering. Hence the project concentrated on improving and assessing the efficiency of the PTO-driven wheat and fertilizer drilling machine, including the demonstration of how to apply engineering methods to minimize the need for manual labor and which made furrow for irrigated wheat. Testing and performance evaluation were made to quantify the effects of PTO speed, tractor forward speeds and hopper loading level on theoretical field capacity, effective field capacity, row spacing, seed distribution uniformity and grain yield. The observations recorded from different plots indicate that the average theoretical field capacity, effective field capacity, and field efficiency of the drilling machine were 0.67 ha/hr, 0.55 ha/hr, and 81.78% at the first forward speed level; 0.84 ha/hr, 0.63 ha/hr, and 75.51% at the second forward speed level; and 1 ha/hr, 0.75 ha/hr, and 74.7% at the third forward speed level, respectively.
Abstract: Wheat constitutes staple food for more than 35% of world population. Regionally, the highest amounts of wheat are produced in Oromia and followed by Amhara. Planting is a process of placing seeds in the soil to have good germination. This method is notably slow, laborious, time-consuming, and costly, often leading to inadequate seed placement and s...
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