DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF COTTON SEED COATING MACHINE

Abstract

Mechanical seed coating has been globally adapted to protect them from fungus, soil-borne diseases, and other harmful substances. In crop production, attaining the potential yield is the main concern of farmers. Among the other problems of low yield, fungal attack is associated with germination stage. To avoid this problem, farmers are using fungicides with the help of bags or clothes. The traditional method is time-consuming, labor-intensive, costly as well as inefficient for uniform coating of seed. To address this challenge and to speed up seed coating process, a manually/motor-operated seed coating machine was designed at CAD/CAM Lab by using Auto CAD software and developed at Agricultural Engineering Workshop of Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi. The newly developed machine was tested at two levels, manually/motor-operated and compared with a traditional method. Its performance was evaluated using (metalaxyl + mancozeb) fungicide under three treatments levels: T1 (traditional coating method), T2 (manual coating method), and T3 (mechanical coating method). The data from the experiment on fully coated seed percentage, semi-coated seed percentage, and uncoated seed percentage were collected and statistically analyzed by using Statistix 8.1. Mechanical seed coating method T3 demonstrates superior results, achieving coating efficiencies of 79.2%, 85.4%, and 93.2% at 2-, 4-, and 6-minutes’ intervals, respectively. The machine offers a cost-effective and efficient solution for cotton-seed treatment, significantly enhancing seed coating uniformity and reducing seed breakage compared to conventional practices.