Paper Title
Development of a Lightweight Four-Row Paddy Drum Seeder

Abstract
Weight is crucial in designing and fabricating agricultural machineries. Lesser weight gives better transportability and lesser drudgery especially the ones operated manually by means of pulling and pushing. This study shows the performance evaluation of a four-row paddy drum seeder fabricated using lightweight locally available materials. Laboratory and field tests were done to determine the machine’s performance. During the laboratory test, the seed rates gathered were 23.65 kg/ha, 13.81 kg/ha, and 9.8 kg/ha at ¼, ½, and ¾, hopper capacity respectively. The ½ hopper capacity was used for the field testing because it requires lesser number of loadings although the ¼ hopper capacity got the highest seed rate. The seed rate observed in the field test was 23 kg/ha. It was found to be increasing during actual field operation due to vibrations of the drum seeder resulted from uneven pulling of implement in the field, turning of the seeder, and unlevelled parts of the field. From the field performance test, it was found that average number of seeds dropped per hill was 3, hill to hill distance was 8.17cm, row-to-row distance was 17.17cm, and average number of hills per square meter was 67. The effective field capacity was 0.0321 ha/h while theoretical field capacity was 0.06 ha/h. The field efficiency of the seeder was found to be 53.5%. Lastly, the machine’s total cost was PhP 2,535.05. The materials used in the fabrication cost PhP 1,810.75, while the labor cost was PhP 724.30. Keywords – Seeder