Development and Laboratory Evaluation of Picker Wheel type Metering Mechanism for Tuberose and Gladiolus Corms

Manual planting of Tuberose bulbs and Gladiolus corms is very tedious and labour intensive operation demanding for development of a suitable metering mechanism for planting of both the crops. Considering the need, a picker wheel type metering mechanism was developed and evaluated for planting of both the crops in linear soil bin for three levels of nominal spacing (15, 20 and 25 cm) and four levels of forward speed (1.5, 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 km/h). The experimental results indicated highest Quality of Feed Index (QFI) as 91.5 and 91.6% at forward speed of 1.5 km/h for Tuberose bulbs and Gladiolus corms respectively. The quality of feed index, coefficient of uniformity and CP3 values decreased whereas missing index and precision values increased with respect to increase in forward speed of the metering unit for all the three nominal spacings. Maximum visible damage was observed at higher levels of forward speeds for lower nominal spacings. The overall performance of the metering unit was found satisfactory for higher nominal spacings and at lower levels of forward speed.