Evaluation of intercultural implements for their operational performance, energetics and economics utilized under rainfed maize cultivation

Infestation of weeds is a serious challenge under rainfed situations and intermittent rains aggravate the situation towards more complexity and their management remains crucial and requires matching strategies. Besides, for facilitating aeration, that is highly required for maize, and conservation of soil moisture through mechanical manipulation of soil through different devices is also very important for rainfed maize cultivation. In order to facilitate these objectives, often in rainfed maize growing regions, field operations are planned with various implements. The various implements meant for these purposes have their own relevance in terms of their operational performance, energetics and economics. Improved intercultural implements namely kudali, CIAE Dryland Weeder, Arjia Improved Dry land Weeder, Bullock Drawn kulpha and Power Weeder were evaluated at Dryland Farming Research Station, Arjia Bhilwara, India for their performance at field level in comparison to traditional implements (kudali) during the Kharif season of 2009 in maize crop. Results revealed that Power Weeder with blade was better than manual weeding by kudali followed by bullock drawn kulpha with respect to energy conservation (48.9 and 42.2%, respectively) and reduction in operating cost (74 and 52.3%, respectively) for weeding in maize. The power weeder required the least labour in terms of man days (8.7 man days / ha) in comparison to other implements. Arjia Improved Dryland Weeder required less supplementary manual labour (16.3 man days / ha) as compared to CIAE Dry land Weeder and reduced weed control cost by 34% in comparison to control.