Development of Animal Drawn Groundnut Planting Machine for Small Holdings Farmers in North Kordofan of Sudan

An animal drawn groundnut planting machine was designed and fabricated. First a computer simulation was conducted for design optimization of furrow opener and covering device of the machine. Equivalent stress for winged type soil engaging components found to be 1.36 x 108 kPa, while for moldboard type was 1.39 x 108 kPa, therefore winged type furrow opener and covering device with 45o rake angle were adopted. Field tests for machine performance were carried out using donkey, mule, and horse as draft animals. The field results showed that the lowest total field time was recorded by mule (1341.3 sec), and the highest total field time was recorded by manual method of sowing (5828.3 sec). The theoretical field capacity values were 0.155 ha/h, 0.175 ha/h, and 0.130 ha/h and they were recorded by donkey, mule, and horse respectively. The values of effective field capacity were 0.128 ha/h, 0.147 ha/h, and 0.105 ha/h and they were demonstrated by donkey, mule, and horse respectively, while in case of manual method of sowing, the effective field capacity was 0.032 ha/h as the lowest value. The field efficiency values were 82.3 % by donkey, 84.3 % by mule and 80.9 % by horse and there was no significant difference between these values at P < 0.001, while in case of manual method of sowing, the field efficiency was 35 % as the lowest value as compared to the machine treatments.