Hand Planter for the Developing World: Factor Testing and Refinement

Abstract

Developing world maize producers desperately need better planting methods.• OSU hand planter delivers safety, convenience, and increased maize yields for producers managing highly marginal landscapes.• Same area of maize planted in the USA (30 million ha) is planted in the developing world on highly marginal slopes.ABSTRACT Maize (Zea mays L.) production in the developing world takes place on marginal landscapes using indigenous planting methods that conflict with modern hybrids, and the chemically treated seeds being used. In 1987, a mechanical planter was imagined that could replace indigenous planting methods used in many developing countries where maize is produced on marginal landscapes. Over two decades, controlled variables were evaluated with the aim of delivering an improved planter capable of singulating maize seed with each planter strike, and that would ensure uniform plant stands. This hand planter, presently termed GreenSeeder was further designed to deliver mid-season fertilizer N via the use of an alternative internal drum. To secure singulation for each planter strike, many seed sizes, planter weights, brush strengths, drum cavity sizes, and operators were evaluated. Results showed that when seed size was large (<3000 seeds kg -1 ) and the 260-20 internal drum was employed, the ability to singulate with no misses was high. When the 450S internal drum was used, seed sizes that were smaller (>3500 seeds kg -1 ) had higher singulation and lower misses. An efficiency index encumbering these parameters was developed that was highly correlated with final grain yield. In-country design and manufacturing should account for ranges in seed size that work with the present design, drum cavity depth, and angle. Because this planter can easily accommodate mid-season fertilizer N application, adoption of this device should deliver increased grain yields and fertilizer N use efficiency.Abbreviations: EI, efficiency index; OSU, Oklahoma State University.

Economics of the Greenseeder Hand Planter

“…These findings corroborate with descriptive statistics in Table 1 for years 2014 and 2015, although in 2016 the GHP resulted in higher average corn yield than the JDP. Dhillon et al (2018) document efforts to refine use of the hand planter and the improved performance in 2016 may partly result from learning in prior years.…”

“…As shown in Table 6, the GHP had the lowest corn emergence rates among the three treatments in all the years and possibly it did not always place a seed. As Dhillon et al (2018) note, these findings have already been used to modify both the design and use of the hand planter.…”

“…For equivalent seeding rates, non-uniform spacing of seeds has been found to result in lower yields than uniform spacing (Epplin et al, 1996;Rutto et al, 2014). Although several hand planters have in the past been developed for corn farmers in developing countries, few of them drop one corn seed with a single strike (singulation) (Aikins et al, 2010;Dhillon et al, 2017Dhillon et al, , 2018. Researchers at Oklahoma State University (OSU) developed a singulating corn Greenseeder hand planter (GHP), hypothesized to reduce optimal seeding rates (Omara et al, 2015).…”

“…Thus, the GHP can reduce long-term health risks because it reduces operator exposure to treated seeds (Fisher, 2016;Dhillon et al, 2017). By changing the GHP's internal drum, the GHP can serve as a mid-season fertilizer applicator where the operator places fertilizer underneath the soil surface (Dhillon et al, 2017(Dhillon et al, , 2018. The GHP is hypothesized to prevent loss of N from ammonia volatilization from urea fertilizers because it allows the operator to place fertilizer beneath the soil surface, which reduces urea's exposure to direct heat from the atmosphere (Dhillon et al, 2017).…”