Finger millet or Ragi is one of the most important minor millet abundantly grown in southern parts of Karnataka. It plays a significant role in livelihood of small and marginal farmers in Ramanagara district of Karnataka, South India. Farmers generally follow traditional sowing method in Ragi using bullock drawn seed drill where uniformity in spacing and depth cannot be maintained. Quantity of seeds required for sowing is also more in this traditional method. On the other hand, line sowing of Ragi is more accurate to save seed, maintaining plant population and to reduce the cost of sowing, weeding & thinning. Therefore, a simple manually drawn three-row seed-cum-fertilizer drill for Ragi sowing was developed at KVK, Ramanagara and evaluated at farmers field conditions. Results revealed that, it ensured uniform germination and proper crop stand and facilitated other post sowing operations like weeding, thinning, plant protection measures, irrigation and harvesting of Ragi crop. The developed seed drill had percent field efficiency, has reduced 65 percent of cost in sowing and 50 percent reduction in labour dependency compared to traditional method of sowing. | Development and evaluation of manually operated seed-cum-fertilizer drill for Ragi sowing
