Performance of power operated rotary weeder in sugarcane and maize.

Weeds are serious menace to crops and cause a great loss. To control weeds mechanical methods are more beneficial than chemical methods w.r.t. yield and eco-friendly. A four row rotary weeder was developed to carry out studies on rotary weeding for sugarcane and maize crop. It was found that the field capacity, plant damage, weeding index and fuel consumption varies from 0.062 to 0.214 ha/h, 1.56–4.13%, 65.54–89.96%, 3.26–6.931/ha, 0.039–0.168ha/h, 1.34–3.83%, 65.91–90.76%, 2.96–6.921/ha for sugarcane and maize crop respectively for C & L types of blades. The optimum moisture content was 16.15% in sugarcane and 14.36% in maize, rotary speed of 190 rpm, depth of operation 9.4 cm for both the crops and C type of blade under the studied range for sugarcane and maize crop respectively. Field capacity of rotary weeder was 0.077 ha/h in sugarcane and 0.050 ha/h in maize as compared to wheel hand hoe 0.035 ha/h in sugarcane and 0.015 ha/h in maize. Cost of weeding by rotary weeder was 987.14 Rs/ha for sugarcane and 1455.2 Rs/ha for maize as compared to wheel hand hoe 1160.57 Rs/ha for sugarcane and 2707.67 Rs/ha for maize crop.