Design of Ingenious Electronic Actuated Tractor Operated Liquid Urea Applicator

The paper contains the design, development details, and field performance of an ingenious electronic actuated tractor operated liquid urea applicator. The fundamentals of farm machinery design were taken into consideration in order to design and select the various components for the liquid urea applicator. The five-row prototype had a row spacing of 40 cm and applied liquid urea at a spacing of 30 cm in each line. The cut-off mechanism was controlled electronically with the help of a limit switch, sensor, solenoid valve, and relay. All the selected components in the designed electronic circuit for cut-off mechanism were powered by 12V DC, and to function properly, power was taken from the tractor's battery. The applicator was developed based on design calculations and then evaluated in the laboratory as well as in field conditions. During field evaluation of the developed prototype, it was found that the application rate was 392 L∙h⁻1, actual field capacity was 0.36 ha∙h⁻1, fuel consumption was 11.3 L∙ha⁻1 with a 2.7 km∙h⁻1 forward speed of the machine. The developed machine is suitable for applying liquid urea in the mulch field with minimum disturbance of soil, plant and residue. It would help in curbing paddy straw burning and reduce fertilizer losses due to volatilization.