Development and Performance Evaluation of Manually Operated Finger Weeder

A push-type manually operated finger weeder with an adjustable long handle, was developed and tested; manually operated finger weeder for dry land crops was evaluated to find its performance. It was compared with traditional method of weeding. Groundnut and black gram were the crop plants chosen for the field trial. The bulk density and moisture content of the soil were 1.64 and 1.65 g/cm3 and 17.15 and 20 percent, respectively in groundnut and blackgram field. The developed weeder impacts the speed, effective field capacity, draft, power needed, field efficiency, and weeding efficiency. It was found that, these were considerably higher at 0.55 km/h, 0.038 ha/h, 11.8 kg, 0.022 hp and 95.74 %, and 82.22 %, in field respectively in operators having BMI of 22.77 kg/m2. According to an economic analysis, the cost of weeding per hectare was found to be Rs.1109.11/- and Rs. 1147.8/- in groundnut and blackgram field.