Development of Manual (Pull-type) Two-row Paddy Transplanter for the Benefit of Small Farmers’ Land Holdings

Paddy (rice) is considered as the most important staple food-cereal crop in south-east Asian countries. It is the majorly consumed food in India. Transplanting of paddy is a highly labor-intensive operation and is still done manually. It takes around 182 to 250-man hours a day to manually transplant rice. Also, many a time due to shortage of labour, transplanting is delayed which causes a progressive decrease in yield. The scarcity of labour during the peak season of transplanting creates a problem to complete the transplanting operation in time. Manually operated paddy transplanter can be useful for small and marginal landholdings. Here we intended to develop equipment that should be of low cost, fabricated locally, versatile in utility, reducing drudgery by making transplanting possible without bending and useful for small farmers. The developed two row rice transplanter prototype can transplant 20 to 25-day old seedlings up to 5 cm depth with adjustable row spacing of about 15-20 cm. It requires two operators, one for filling the tray while walking behind and another for pulling the transplanter while walking in front of the machine. The actual filed capacity of 0.2 ha per day (eight hour working day) was achieved with the machine by considering a 5%- and 3%- time loss due to turning and filling tray respectively.