Weeding is one of the major control operations in the vegetable crops. The traditional method of weed control is to remove the weed manually by a Khurpi or Spade. This is a very time consuming process. Due to shortage of agricultural labour in peak season, farmers cannot compete weeding in time. Mechanical weeding keeps the soil surface loose, which results in better aeration and moisture conservation. In our country the average land is about 0.5 ha/farmer so, the use of power weeder is not economical and also it is not useful because in standing crop we have to maintain the row to row as well as plant to plant distance. The use of power weeder gives better yield but it is very costly and our farmer cannot afford it. So putting all the gaps a manually operated rotary weeder has been developed by keeping view the cost is low as well as it gives better removal of weeds in vegetative crops. The power is generated for weeding purpose from ground by using a drum. The drum is mounted on a shaft, which moves when drum moves. A bicycle chain wheel is also mounted on that shaft which is connected to the free wheel, which is mounted on pinion shaft through a chain. So when drum moves the pinion shaft as well as tine mounted on pinion shaft also with more peripheral velocity due to difference in number of teeth of chain wheel and gear wheel. The rotary blade enables cutting of weeds and integrating it into soil. The width of coverage of weeder is more than 30 cm and depth of operation can be adjusted. The weeding efficiency of developed weeder was found as 80 %, at soil moisture content level of 16 %. The % plant damaged was found at this weeding efficiency in between 0.6 to 1.2 %. The performance of developed weeder has been analysed on 16 % to 19 % soil moisture content in Tomato, Bringal and okra crops and result shows that weeding efficiency increases with decrease in soil moisture content. Maximum weeding efficiency is obtained at 1.5 Km/h speed of operation and 35 mm depth of operation. The observed field capacity of weeder has been found 0.042 ha/h at 1.5 km/h speed of operation at a depth of 35 mm. The cost of weeding operation by using manually operated rotary weeder was calculated at Rs. 16221/ha which was 60 % lower than the conventional method of weeding.

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