Abstract:
Excessive usage of chemical fertilizer has become a global problem and a cause for
various issues of humans and nature. Organic fertilizers are basically derived from
vegetable matters, animal manure or human excreta which is the best solution to
solve this issue. Organic farming methods are appropriate and adaptable to many
types of land use in any part of Sri Lanka. It could support paddy, vegetable, fruits
and some other tree crops. Distribution of organic material in the soil near to the
plant is a major task. Due to high variability of physical characteristics of organic
materials, several technical problems can be observed during its handling and
application under field conditions. Use of manpower for the application of organic
materials is uneconomical due to high labor cost. Therefore, small engine operated
fertilizer distributor with organic slurry maker and direct drive slurry pump were
designed and constructed. This machine was not only useful to chop and mix solid
organic materials to prepare slurry, but also useful to distribute the mixed organic
materials. The machine consists of an engine, power transmission unit with the
friction belt system, slurry making unit and pumping unit. Discharge rate (kg s-1),
chopping rate (kg s-1) and mixing rate (kg s-1) were considered as criteria in the
performance evaluation. The test results showed that the maximum volume of the
machine per batch was 0.04 m3 and the slurry pumping head, Pump discharge rate,
leaf chopping rate, mixing rate were 2.09 m, 4.4 ⅹ10-4 m3 s-1, 112 kg s-1, 6 kg s-1,
respectively. The cost of production of the machine is 30,000 Rs.
