EVALUATING A SEMI-AUTOMATIC SUGAR STECKLING TRANSPLANTER PERFORMANCE

Hand planting sugar-beet stecklings for seed production is a labor and time intensive operation. Timeliness of steckling transplanting is important in achieving higher seed yields. This necessitated the study into mechanization of this process. A two-row semi-automatic transplanter prototype was designed, constructed and tested. Forward speed and fuel consumption of the pulling tractor and wheel slip, field efficiency, machine capacity and planting accuracy of the transplanter were measured. The field performance parameters of the prototype and its transplanting accuracy based on the Regional Network for Agricultural Machinery (RNAM) test codes and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards were determined. The costs of mechanical transplanting were also evaluated and compared with the hand planting. A paired comparison t-test with five replications was used. Analysis of the field test results showed that at a forward speed of 0.47 km h^-1d a field efficiency of 80%, the machine capacity of the transplanter was 0.5 ha day^-1 the fuel consumption for the transplanting was 5.3 L ha^-1 The transplanter wheel slip was 5.0%. The prototype performed well and placed the stecklings in the ridges straight and firmly at the within-the-row spacing and a planting depth close to the agronomically recommended values of 53 and 15 cm, respectively. The transplanting capacity of the machine was 14.2 stecklings per operator per min. The labor requirements for hand planting and mechanical transplanting were 246 and 63 man-hr ha^-1 respectively. In mechanical transplanting, the steckling density was increased by 36.6%. The time and cost required to transplant 1000 stecklings with the transplanter were significantly less than hand planting.