Design and Fabrication of Manually Operated Paddy Weeder

A manual type operated weeder was designed and developed at the workshop of the Department of Farm Machinery and Power at BCKV, Nadia district, West Bengal, India. This Study was conducted to know the design features of manually operated weeders for paddy weeding. The weeder was made of locally available materials to reduce the cost of weeding. The weeder was tested at the experimental field of the Department of Farm Machinery and Power to evaluate its functional and economical parameters. The travel speed of this type weeder is 1.3 km/h. The weeding efficiency of weeder was found 65.6% to 74.2%. The average field capacity of the weeder was observed as 0.013 ha/h.

The field efficiency of this type weeder was found as 81.2%. The plant damage of this weeder was found as 2.96%. Operating cost of this type weeder is Rs. 3557.3/ha. Therefore, designed of this type weeder is the best in terms of cost of operation and it is more economical compared to other weeding operation.