Performance Evaluation of Two Row Animal Drawn Maize Planter with Fertilizer Applicator

In most parts of Ethiopia, planting of maize is done by hand, and it is a tedious, time consuming and less efficient operation. A two-row animal drawn that is cost-effective for farmers, easy to repair, and user friendly was developed and evaluated. The components of the prototype are seed hoppers, fertilizer hoppers, mainframe, seed metering plates, wheels, furrow openers and closers, seed discharge tubes, and handles. The majority of the parts were made of mild steel. In order to optimize the planter’s design, the physical properties of maize seeds were taken into account. The parameters used for evaluating the prototype’s performance were multiple index, miss-index, precision-index, feed-quality-index, field capacity, field efficiency, planting depth, plant population count, labour cost, and economy. A factorial design was used for the experiment (4x3x3). The result indicated that the percentage of mechanical seed damage, seed sphericity, and seed germination were 1.01±0.37%, 71.56±7.10% & 94.58±0.21, respectively. Performance results showed planter’s forward speed during operation had a significant effect on the seed’s multiple index, miss-index, feed-quality-index and precision-indexes (at p < 0.05). Average values of field capacity, field efficiency & depth of planting were 0.21 ha h-1, 86% and 4.61+0.30 cm, respectively. The performance evaluation results showed that Ethiopian farmers who grow maize would find the prototype planter simple to use, efficient, and economical.