DEVELOPMENT OF A COCOYAM PLANTER

Abstract

A cocoyam planter was designed, fabricated and evaluated for performance. The major components of the planter are hopper, metering system, ridging disc, furrow opening disc, furrow covering disc and chain and sprocket mechanism for power transmission. The materials for fabricating the planter were sourced locally. Performance tests were conducted to evaluate the effect of forward speed of operation on the following parameters; planting depth. number of corms planted, average spacing along rows and quality of work done. Results of the test were statistically analysed using regression analysis to investigate the effect of forward speed of operation on the parameters of evaluation. From the regression statistics and the ANOV A of each parameter, it was shown from the values of R2 obtained for each parameter that all the machine parameters are dependent variable on speed of operation. Comparing the values of F (calculated) End F (critical) parameters. there is strong significant effect of forward speed on all the evaluation. The operations within the speeds 2.32 and 2.90 km/h shows optimal performance considering the result obtained at this interval. While the recommended spacing for cocoyam planting is 60cm, 58cm and 57cm while the corresponding field efficiencies were 70%, 67% and 60% respectively. The estimate cost of production is #35,541 which is affordable by farmer. This will no doubt ease the problem of cocoyam planting.