DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A WALK-BEHIND DRIVEN MONO WHEEL AGRO-CHEMICAL BOOM SPRAYER.

Abstract

The rural subsistence agricultural farmers require a technologically improved boom sprayer for spraying agro-chemicals. This will protect crops from pests and disease attacks to improve yield. Farmers use ordinary knapsack sprayers for spraying by pushing the lever up and down to create the needed pressure for spray. This is time-consuming, accompanied by the operator’s drudgery leading to a small area of farmland being covered. This research aimed at increasing field performance capacity with minimal man-hour input to reduce drudgery. The designed equipment was constructed using a 20-litre capacity tank and four (4) precision nozzles for breaking liquid into droplets of effective sizes, distributing them uniformly over the surface to be applied using a slider crank mechanism. This was regulated using a hand-operated pressure regulator to avoid excessive application that might prove harmful and wasteful. At an average forward travel speed of 4 km/hr, the equipment TFC calculated was 1.04 ha/hr. For every 0.31 hectare of field coverage after 18 minutes, only 4 times of refilling was required; the AFC evaluated was 0.89 ha/hr while the FE of the equipment calculated was 86 % having an optimal uniformity of coverage.