MECHANISED MINIMUM SOIL DISTURBANCE ESTABLISHMENT AND YIELD OF DIVERSE CROPS IN PADDY FIELDS USING A TWO-WHEEL TRACTOR-MOUNTED PLANTER SUITABLE FOR SMALLHOLDER CROPPING

SUMMARY Shortages of hired labour are leading to greater interest in mechanisation for crop establishment in smallholder agriculture. Due to small field sizes, mechanised planters mounted on four-wheel tractors are not a suitable technology. The Versatile Multi-crop Planter (VMP) was developed for zero tillage (ZT), strip planting (SP) or single pass shallow tillage (SPST) on flat land and for forming and planting on tops of beds, each in a single pass operation, when mounted on a two-wheel tractor (2WT). The aim of the present study was to evaluate the field performance of the VMP in comparison to conventional broadcast seeding and full rotary tillage (2 to 4 passes; called CT) for establishing chickpea ( Cicer arietinum L.), jute ( Corchorus…