Intercultural Operation Equipment

Introduction Weeders Dry land weeders

Intercultural equipments

• All the lighter and finer operations carried out on the soil, between sowing had harvesting are termed as intercultural operations.
  
• They include weeding, fertilizer application, mulching, etc.
  
• The machineries and implements used for this purpose are called as inter cultural equipments.
  

Weeders

(i) Hand Hoe

• This is the weeding tool used widely in most of the farms to carry out the weeding operation and also as harvesting tool to bring the produce from inside the root zone.
  
• This tool has a short handle made of country wood and a small shovel attached at its end.
  
• The width of cut is not a standard one and depends on the village artisan who makes it and the demand of the farmer who uses it.

(ii) Long Handled Weeders

• The drudgery to the human is more and the working efficiency is low with the hand held hoes, which makes the operator to bend / sit down work on the soil.
  
• To reduce this problem, long handled weeders were developed.
  

Some of the long handled weeders are

• long handled hoe
  
• paddy weeder
  
• star type and peg type dry land weeders.
  

A) Long handled hoe

• This tool has a long bamboo / wooden stick of about 1.2 m length.
  
• At the end a double end shovel is fixed rigidly, with different cutting widths.
  
• Weeding can be done easily by using this tool.
  

B) Paddy weeder

• Paddy weeder does the weeding operation when the seedlings are transplanted in rows.
  
• The implement has an inclined long handle.
  
• At the fool of it two conical cylinders with serrated lugs on its periphery are fixed.
  
• These two conical serrated cylinders can rotate freely about it axis and placed in opposite sides.
  
• A steel plate has been into the loose soil and assists in easy operations.
  
• In operation, the seerated lugs cutand burry the weeds and some of the weeds are wound on the surface of the cylinders, which can be removed manually.
  

C) Dry land/garden land weeder

• This can be classified into star type and peg type depending upon the shape of the roller attached at the foot of the long handle, to facilitate easy movement of the weeder and to have sufficient grip on the soil.
  
• The star type is suitable for clay loam and black cotton soils.
  
• The cutting blade is fixed on vertical and positioned appropriately depending upon the height of the operator.
  
• The weeding operation is done by smooth and short reciprocating motion.
  
• The peg tooth of the peg type permits the movement of roller without clogging due to reduced contact area.
  

III) Sweep

• The sweep consists of 'V' shaped shovels with bevel edged wings.
  
• Shovels are held by tynes fixed to a frame work by means of clamps.
  
• By just skimming under the soil at a shallow depth of 2 to 3 cm, the sweep break the continuity of proper and provides a good soil mulch.
  
• During intercultural operation, the spacing can be adjusted to cut the row spacing.
  If necessary, half sweep can be used.
• The sweep consists of 'V' shaped shovels with bevel edged wings.
  
• The shovels are held by the tynes fixed to a frame work by means of countersunk bolts nuts.
  
• When the sweep is used for secondary tillage, five or six tynes may be clamped with the shovels in at line having no gap in between them.
  
• By just skimming under the soil at a shallow depth of 2 to 3 cm, the sweep breaks the capillarity in the soil pores and provides a soil mulch.
  
• When the sweep is used for intercultural operations, the space between the shovels is adjusted to suit the row spacing of the crop and with different sizes of blades.
  

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Dry land weeders(Manually Operated)

Peg type

• Dry land weeder with long handle is suitable for weeding in row crops rain fed in garden lands.
  
• It is easily operated by a man or woman.
  
• The weeder is useful and economic under ideal conditions; i.e. when the soil moisture content is about 10%.
  
• It performs well in plain fields where the weeds are shallow rooted and the land is not too thickly infested with weeds.
  
• It can also be used with some experience for removing weeds in ridges and furrows.
  
• The blade can be adjusted to the desired angle and depth by removing four bolts and nuts.
  
• The peg teeth permit the movement of the roller in clay soil without getting clogges.
  

Star type

• The function and operation are similar to the peg type weeder excepting that the star type roller facilitates easier operation of the weeder in loamy and sandy soils.

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