DEVELOPMENT OF CASSAVA STEM PLANTER

Abstract

This thesis is the outcome of an engineering project undertaken to develop a row tractor mounted cassava stem planter. It involved the design, fabrication, assembly and testing of the machine on the field. The main components of the machine are hopper, metering mechanism, furrow opener, stem tube, furrow covering device, land leveler or press wheel, land wheel, chain and sprockets. The materials used for the fabrication of the machine were sourced locally. The machine is simple to operate and cheap to maintain. The cassava stem planter was subjected to series of tests by varying tractors forward speeds to obtain the following parameters: planting depth, intra and inter row spacing, number of stem(s) dropped per stand and number of damaged stems. The results of the field tests indicated that at a low forward speed of 7 km/h, the machine achieved the highest work rate of 0.3 ha/h and attained 78 % field efficiency. Further, at the optimum forward speed of 7 km/h, the machine planted accurately at intra row spacing of 102 cm and the depth of 8 cm.