PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF TRACTOR MOUNTED STRAW CHOPPER CUM SPREADER FOR PADDY STRAW MANAGEMENT

Paddy-wheat is major crop rotation of Punjab and mostly combines are used for harvesting these two crops. The end use of paddy straw is not yet wide spread either on farm or in industrial sector. Thus straw management in combine harvested paddy fields is a major problem in paddy-wheat rotation. To overcome this problem, it was proposed that paddy straw is first chopped and then incorporated in soil with minimum tillage efforts. Keeping in view, Deptt. of Farm Power and Machinery, PAU had developed a tractor mounted straw chopper-cum-spreader. In this machine harvesting and chopping sections were combined. The study was conducted to evaluate the performance of the machine. Two levels of moisture content of paddy straw (30 & 40 %, wb), three levels of chopping speed (1300, 1450 & 1600 rpm) and three levels of forward speed (2.0, 2.5 & 3.0 km/h) were selected. Optimal combination of variables was selected on the basis of size of cut of straw, uniformity of straw spread (C.V. basis) and fuel consumption. Effect of moisture content on size of chopping was found to be non-significant. Per cent size of cut (up to 4 cm) of paddy straw increased with increase in chopper speed and decreased with increase in forward speed. None of the independent variables had a significant effect on uniformity of straw spread. Fuel consumption at lower moisture content was low. Fuel consumption (l/h) increased with increase in chopping speed as well as with increase in forward speed. Effect of forward speed was more pronounced on fuel consumption than the effect of chopping speed. Optimal combination was a chopping speed of 1450 rpm and a forward speed of 2.0 km/h.