PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND ACADEMIC SESSIONS - 2004 Design and development of a row seeder for Gingelly, Kurakkan and Meneri P. L. A. G Alwis Department of Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna , Kamburupitiya, Sri Lanka Abstract » A manually operated seeder was designed and developed for small seeded crops such as Gingelly, Kurakkan, and Meneri, after testing the first proto-type seeder and implementing necessary modifications. The developed seeder has a frame, wheel, metering mechanism, hopper, seed tube, handle and marker. Laboratory and field experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance o f the seeder. A comparative performance of the new raw seeding technique incorporated in the designed seeder was compared with traditional hand broadcasting method Weight o f 1000 seeds, hardness, moisture content, germination and bulk density o f seeds were measured in the Laboratory. Seed delivery rate, rate o f damage seed caused by metering mechanism, pattern o f seed deposit in the field, working capacity, delivery rate in the field, travel reduction (slippage), depth o f seeding, _ and ratio of established plants to seeds sown were considered as criteria for evaluation of the designed seeder. The delivery rates observed in the laboratoryfor gingelly kurakkan and meneri were 5.8 kg/ha, 5.9 kg/ha and 7.2 kg/ha respectively. The damage seedpercentage o f the designed machine for Gingelly, Kurakkan, and Meneri were 9.7, 7.5 and 3.4, respectively. The effective working capacity o f the seeder was 0.66 ha/day, which was significantly higher to that o f broadcasting. It showed that broadcasting was 5 times costlier than machine seeding. On the basis o f above results, the design seeder could be recommendedfor successful row seeding o f small seed crops. Keywords: Row Seeder, planting techniques, small seed crops, Gingelly, Kurakkan, and Meneri Introduction Cereals and legumes with small seeds such as Gingelly, Kurakkan, Meneri and Thanahal are being used for human and livestock feeds. For increasing production of these food crops not only high quality seeds and effective cultural practices are needed, but more appropriate techniques and tools are equally important. There is good scope for increasing yield per hectare of these food crops as well as the total area sown through the adoption of advance technology including mechanization. One of the major constrains to enhance the increased production of gingelly, kurakkan, and meneri lies on the planting techniques. The objectives of the present research were to design, develop and evaluate the performance of a low cost manually operated seeder for gingelly, kurakkan and meneri. Methodology A manually operated seeder was designed and developed for small seed crops such as kurakkan gingerly, and meneri after testing first proto-type seeder and implementing necessary modifications. The developed seeder has a frame, wheel, metering mechanism, hopper, seed tube, handle and marker, (see figure 01 and figure 02 for design details). 15