A

Proposal On

Design, Fabrication and Testing of Two Rows Potato Planter

By

Binita Tiwari(071/BME/407)

Ritu Shrestha (071/BME/430)

Zenisha Shrestha (071/BME/447)

Sambriddhi Neupane (071/BME/448)

DEPARTMENT OF AUTOMOBILE AND MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

THAPATHALI CAMPUS

THAPATHALI, KATHMANDU

DECEMBER 13, 2017

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 Abstract

Potatoes are the second consumed food in Nepal. However, due to the lack of proper
machineries and equipment its production is widely varied. The requirement of numbers of
labourers for the process is one of the major drawbacks of traditional methods which could be
overcome by the development of proper machineries.

Potato planter is the automatic machine which is used for the plantation of the potatoes. The
main purpose of the potato planter is to plant the potato for the mass and efficient production
within minimum time limits for the plantation. The plant to plant distance in a row is 25cm
and the row to row distance is 60cm for the plantation. The power required for driving and
operating the planter is driven by power tiller. The planter helps the farmers for easy and
efficient plantation and production of the potatoes.

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Contents
List of figures.......................................................................................................................................... 4
1. Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 5
2. Objectives: .......................................................................................................................................... 5
a) Main objective................................................................................................................................ 5
b) Specific objective........................................................................................................................... 5
3. Problem Statement.............................................................................................................................. 6
4. Justification......................................................................................................................................... 6
5. Literature review................................................................................................................................. 7
6. Methodology....................................................................................................................................... 8
6.1 Concept development.................................................................................................................... 9
6.2 Field visit and market research..................................................................................................... 9
6.3 Literature review........................................................................................................................... 9
6.4 Preliminary design........................................................................................................................ 9
6.5 Design analysis............................................................................................................................. 9
6.7 Design modification...................................................................................................................... 9
6.8 Fabrication.................................................................................................................................... 9
6.9 Testing and result collection......................................................................................................... 9
6.10 Documentation............................................................................................................................ 9
6.11 Final report submission............................................................................................................. 10
7. Description and Working principle................................................................................................... 10
8. Time Schedule................................................................................................................................... 13
9. Budget Estimation: ............................................................................................................................ 13
10. Limitations....................................................................................................................................... 13
References............................................................................................................................................ 14

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List of figures

Figure 1: Traditional Potato Planting Technique...................................................................................7

Figure 2: Isometric view Figure 3: side view.................................................................................. 10
Figure 4: Front view............................................................................................................................ 11
Figure 5: Frame with plough and mud filler........................................................................................ 11
Figure 6: Hopper with metering system.............................................................................................. 12
Figure 7: Power tiller........................................................................................................................... 12
Figure 8: Gantt Chart........................................................................................................................... 13

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1. Introduction
Potato is one of the most important crops of Nepal. It is the Nepal’s second staple food crops,
after rice, and per capita consumption has almost doubled since 1990. Potato is widely grown
in Nepal, at below 100m altitude in the south to as high as 4000m altitude in the northern
mountains. It is more productive than rice and maize and cold climate is well suited for
production. It contains 79% water, 17 % of carbohydrate (88% of which is starch), 2%
protein and contains negligible fat. It is rich in carbohydrate so that the people of Himalayan
region use potato instead of rice. In a 100 gram amount, raw potato provides 77 calorie and is
a rich source of vitamin B6 and vitamin C.

According to the recent statistics (ABPSD, 2010), potato ranks fifth in area (185,342 ha),
second in production (25,17,696 tons) and first in productivity (13.58 t/ha) among the major
food crops grown in Nepal. Due to its potentiality and wider adaptability to grow year round
in the country, its importance is ever increasing. National potato development program
(NPDP) has been established in 1972 as a national organization for development of potato in
Nepal.

Various variety of potato is grown at different time on the basis of geographical structure in
Nepal. In most of the area potato are planted traditionally by the human themselves. Potato
planter is designed to plant the potato in a short time and to reduce the human labour.

2. Objectives:

a) Main objective
 To design and fabricate two rows potato planter using power tiller.

b) Specific objective
 To analyse different possible designs and to fabricate easily functioning potato
planting machine.
 To minimize the cost of potato planting and time for plantation of potato.
 To overcome the limitations of existing potato planter.
 To increase the production and productivity of potato through the development of
technology.

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3. Problem Statement
Despite being the most consumed vegetable of Nepal, the production of potato is not
satisfactory. There are still some constraints mitigating its production development which
includes geographical structures of our country, time-consuming and tedious plantation,
improper cropping pattern, a traditional way of planting, more labours requirement etc.

In Nepal, a major problem in the traditional way of potato planting is the requirement of a
huge number of labours. Potato planting starts with the dune (plateau) formation. Sometimes
potato seeds should be cut in an average size for plantation. A number of labours are required
to make a dune and to cut seeds. Labours are also required for the plantation of seeds and
filling the dune after plantation.

Some of the technical initiations have been done so far. One row potato planter coupled with
mini tiller and tractor has been developed. However, this planter has some drawbacks. The
planter with mini-tiller has a single row which plants only one row at a time. It is ground
driven due to which sometimes the planter stops dropping potato seeds due to deposition of
soil on the wheel. Planter coupled with tractor may not be suitable for the hilly area and in the
small field area.

4. Justification
To overcome the limitations of single row planter, the new planter will use two rows planting
at a time. Power from the tiller itself will be used as a source of power for the machine so that
the planter doesn’t stop due to soil deposits on the wheel. This problem will also be reduced
by the use of single flywheel for support. To make the use of the machine in the small land
area, it is coupled with the power tiller. The machine will also reduce the problem of seeds
size variation because using bucket system for dropping seeds will cover a greater range of
variation in seeds size. So the machine will help to reduce time and labour cost. It will
facilitate ease planting.

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5. Literature review
Traditionally, potato is planted manually using plough for making the Plateau and potato is
also planted without making plateau too. Number of labour with higher wages is required for
planting the potato and it takes more time to plant in a small area as all work is done
manually. In present time, different types of potato planter have been designed in different
countries.

Figure 1: Traditional Potato Planting Technique

First mechanical potato planter has been attributed to the Aspin wall Manufacturing Co. in
1878. Because of the invention’s success, the company devoted itself solely to creating and
building potato equipment in 1883.

The Aspin wall Co. later built another plant in Ontario, Canada, in keeping with the demand
for its products. In the planter, a star wheel with a series of pickers around its circumference
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is rotated through a hopper full of cut seed potato pieces. Each picker is a sort of mechanical
hand, or jaw, with a sharp point. The point skewers a seed piece and as each opened picker
leaves the hopper, the jaws are tripped, allowing the seed piece to drop into a tube which
guides it into a furrow made by a furrow opener. Trailing double discs (or shoes) close the
soil over the potato pieces.
Sometimes the pickers would fail to close properly on the seed and it dropped back in the
hopper, causing a missed hill. Large potato growers felt these misses couldn’t be tolerated,
and a man named Fred Bateman, who owned the Iron Age Company at Grenloch, N.J.,
developed an assisted-feed planter. In the Iron Age planter, the pickers deposited the seed
pieces into holes in a revolving type plate before dropping them in the tube. As the plate
revolved, a person riding on the planter filled any empty holes by hand, thus eliminating
missed hills. This device ensured that a piece of potato was ready to be fed into the furrow. It
also allowed the driver to manually deposit a potato seed into position if necessary.

Although Aspin wall made a complete line of potato equipment including a two row,
gasoline-powered planter, the company went out of business in the early 1920s. The
McKenzie Manufacturing Co. of La Crosse bought the Aspin wall potato machinery patent
and continued producing potato planters. The basic design of this machinery is still in use
today although horsepower has given way to tractor power and several rows are planted at a
time.
A tractor mounted three point hitch potato planter that drops the seed close the bottom of the
furrow to prevent its rolling, and which planter is closely hitched with hydraulic lift and can
thereby be raised off the ground for tight turns and backing.
It is observed from the literature the potato planting machine have been successfully used for
cultivating the potato process. This gives an idea to develop a potato planting machine in
agriculture for land ploughing, seed placement, soil over lapping.

In Nepal, nowadays the mini tiller operated potato planter and tractor operated potato planter
are available which are imported from China. Mini tiller operated single row potato planter
has imported by SKT Nepal.

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6. Methodology
The methodology that will be followed during the project is shown in the flowchart below:

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

FIELD VISIT AND MARKET

RESEARCH

LITERATURE REVIEW

PRELIMINARY DESIGN

DESIGN ANALYSIS

DESIGN MODIFICATION

FABRICATION

TESTING AND RESULT

COLLECTION

DOCUMENTATION

FINAL REPORT SUBMISSION

Fig. Flowchart showing project methodology

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6.1 Concept development
Potatoes are the most consumed food in Nepal that can be grown in any type of climate and
region. But the lack of proper machineries has troubled the amount of the production. With
the development of proper technology and equipment the production can be increased.

6.2 Field visit and market research

Various sites for the potato plantation having the recent and related machineries have been
visited. Research articles related to the production was also studied.

6.3 Literature review

The literature review was carried out through web-based research, expert interaction, manual
study.

6.4 Preliminary design

Analysing the previous designs made, surface designing of the product was done. Previous
limitations and drawbacks was also analysed during the process.

6.5 Design analysis

The design made will be analysed by the force analysis and the calculations.

6.7 Design modification

The design according to the analysis and calculations will be modified if necessary.

6.8 Fabrication
The product will be fabricated according to the final design with the selection of the
particular material.

6.9 Testing and result collection

The fabricated design will be tested by planting the potato itself and efficiency will be
calculated and the final result will be collected.

6.10 Documentation
After the completion of the project and testing of the product the documentation part will be
done.
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6.11 Final report submission
A final report will be prepared which will include overview of development of machine,
detail information of processes that have been followed during the project. The final report
will be then submitted.

7. Description and Working principle:

The two row potato planter machine will be made of different metals with main components
hopper, plough, metering system, mud filler, frame and wheel. There will be a big hopper
divided into two compartments by the plate on the upper side of the frame. Two plough and
four mud filler will be there in the machine in order to make track and to make the plateau
respectively. Endless bucket will be attached in the chain for the plantation of potato.

The power transmission in the machine will be provided by the power tiller. The potato
planter will be hitched behind the power tiller with the power transmission system. The
clutch system will be added to engage and disengage the power transmission to drive shaft of
planter. In working mechanism, firstly, plough will make the track and then bucket will lift
the seed potatoes from a hopper and will drop them in the track. Finally the filler will cover
the potato seed with mud and make the plateau simultaneously. It covers 120cm width at a
time with row to row distance of 60cm and plant to plant distance 25cm.

Figure 2:Isometric view Figure 3: side view

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Figure 4:Front view

Figure 5:Frame with plough and mud filler

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 Figure 6: Hopper with metering system

Power tiller

The power tillers are machines powered with 12-18 horsepower engine and designed to
propel forward or backwards different agriculture implements. They could also be designed
to be operated by walking or sitting depending on the implement it is pushing or pulling. Its
speed is controlled through its handlebars. Its tyre can be changed to operate in dry and wet
soil surface. As safety feature, most power tillers can propel only forward and not backward.

Figure 7: Power tiller

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8. Time Schedule
The proposed time schedule of our project is shown below:

15-Nov-17 4-Jan-18 23-Feb-18 14-Apr-18 3-Jun-18 23-Jul-18 11-Sep-18

Preliminary Research
Concept development
Literature review
Proposal Preparation

Preliminary Design Duration Detail Design

Design Modification
Fabrication
Testing and Result Analysis
Final reporting

Figure 8: Gantt chart

9. Budget Estimation:
Cost estimation of potato planting machine is:

S.N Name of Parts Quantity Estimated Cost(Rs.)

1. Hopper 1 8,000
2. Wheel 1 6,000
3. Plough 2 5,000
4. Filler 4 6,000
5. Bucket system 2 30,000
6. Power transmission - 15,000
7. Framing - 60,000
8. Miscellaneous - 13,000
Total 1,43,000

10. Limitations
The new machine has been designed to overcome the drawbacks of previous machines as far
as possible. However, all the requirements could not be met. The dropping mechanism of
fertilizer could also be added before dropping potato seeds. Use of power tiller overcomes
the drawbacks of tractor but it cannot be used in very small land area in hilly region.

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References

 www.irjet.net/.../IRJET-V4I4218
 (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2017, from
http://narc.gov.np/org/potato_research_program.php
 Potato planter. (2017, September 27). Retrieved December 13, 2017, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_planter
 Innovations. (n.d.). Retrieved December 13, 2017, from
http://www.ricehub.org/RT/land-preparation/power-tiller
 Post harvest Manual for Export of Potatoes, 2003, Agricultural & Processed Food
Products Export Development Authority (APEDA).
 Handbook of Agricultural Sciences, Dr. Singh, S.S, 1998
 Marketing of Vegetables in India by VigneshwaraVaramudy Published by Daya
Publishing House, Delhi.
 Handbook of Agricultural Science- Published by Indian Council of Agricultural
Research (ICAR), New Delhi.

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