Design and Prototype Development of Hybrid Ploughing, Seeding and Fertilizing Machine

This research work mainly focuses on design and prototype development of hybrid ploughing, seeding and fertilizing machine for typical Ethiopian farmers. In Ethiopia, the major tasks of farming include; ploughing, seeding and fertilizing. Since thousands of years until now the farming is dependent on oxen drawn plough plow. But, this system is labor intensive, time consuming and its depth of ploughing is shallow. These draw backs of existing agricultural system result in insufficient productivity. Now a day's modern agricultural machines are being imported into the country. But they are used by few organizations, small agriculture investors and few rich farmers. In collaboration with the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency, relevant data was collected on the gap of existing trial mechanisms and the need of farmers. To analyze the collected data and arrive at final output, methodology procedures followed by the researchers were; organizing the special design needs of end user, analyzing six alternative design concepts, selection of one optimal concept, detail dimensional design of selected concept, force analysis using the mechanics, dynamics and kinematics, preparing 2D and 3D drawings using Auto CAD and CATIA then finally prototype development. For the case of its economical applicability for poor Ethiopian farmers, the researchers assured that, it is low cost by conducting cost analysis. Unique features of this new design include; simultaneous ploughing, seeding, and fertilizing of multi lines, its mechanism for seeding variable size grains and for specifying their spacing, its control system relationship with the wheel rotation, its easiness to operate and maintain, its minimal damage to the seed during the process, its high level of operational reliability and its suitableness for modification based on capacity of the user. Therefore, using this machine will result in considerable improvements in productivity of the majority of Ethiopian farmers at lower cost.