February 04, 2023 08:53 pm | Updated 08:55 pm IST - Thrissur
The Patent Office, the Government of India, has granted registration of design for ‘seed-cum-fertilizer drill’ in the name of Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) for a period of 10 years, according to a press release from KAU here on Saturday. Gear Wheel
Seed-cum-fertilizer drill is a machinery used to sow seeds in rows and apply fertilizers simultaneously in well-drained, ploughed and levelled fields. The machine works by opening furrows, placing seeds and fertilizers in them, and covering them with soil. This manually operated machinery takes an hour to plant crops at an inter-row spacing of 30 cm in 10 cents (0.04 ha), according to KAU.
Plant spacing and inter-row spacing can be adjusted according to the crop requirements. Planting crops in rows provides advantages for crop management practices, including weed control.
The machinery is beneficial to farmers with limited land availability for sowing seeds of different crops such as finger millet, sesame, rice, groundnut, maize and so on whose seeds vary in size. The design of the machinery was the outcome of research undertaken by scientists including Jacob D., Sheeja K. Raj, Shalini Pillai P., and post-graduate scholars Navyashikha B., Sneha S.R., Arunima Babu C.S. and Namitha V.V., at the Department of Agronomy, College of Agriculture, Vellayani, Thiruvananthapuram.
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