The National Seed Project in the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru has imported the tractor drawn
seed drill for sowing bold seeds (pulses, peas etc.) under the foreign exchange programme. The Department of Agricultural
Engineering in the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru, has suitably modified the imported seed drill for sowing
small seeds like finger millets. In this seed drill only seeds can be sown and the placement of fertilizer is done separately by
broad casting manually. In the broad casting process, the fertilizer use efficiency of the plants is very less and the most of the
fertilizer applied to the soil by broadcasting is taken away by the weeds. The right placement of seed and fertilizer helps in
achieving better yields which are directly affected by healthy germination, crop stand and plant population. Placement of
fertilizer is very essential for optimum utilization. An attempt has been made in this study to develop a fertilizer attachment to
the imported seed drill to drop the seeds and fertilizer simultaneously at a desired rate and at a desired depth.
The fertilizer box designed and developed was mounted to the frame of the existing seed drill with the support of
angle iron frame. The agitator was provided in the fertilizer box to break the formation of bridge of fertilizer in the openings
provided to drop the fertilizer. The transparent tubes were connected between the fertilizer box and the furrow openers to
facilitate the operator to check the continuous flow of fertilizer. The power to drive the fertilizer metering mechanism and the
agitator was taken from the ground driving wheel. When the driving wheel rotates during operation the metering rollers and
fertilizer agitators mounted over a common shaft rotates. Provision has been made to drop the fertilizer as per the
recommendations per unit area depending upon the crop required. The performance of seed cum fertilizer drill was evaluated
by adopting RNAM (Regional Network for Agricultural Machinery) test codes and found working satisfactorily.
Keywords: Seed cum fertilizer drill, Metering mechanism, Ground wheel, Agitator Fertilizer box