Development and Evaluation of Inclined Plate Metering Mechanism for the Sowing of Maize (Zea mays L) Seed

Maize (Zea mays L) is the third most imperative food cash crop after wheat and rice in India. Inclined plate seed metering mechanism was developed and evaluated in the laboratory for singulation and uniform placement of maize seeds with three varieties (PMH-1, PIONEER-3396, PMH-10). Metering device was tested at three inclinations of 45°, 50° and 55° using three types of metering plates (P1, P2, P3) having 24 groove number cells. The average spacing between seeds at 3 km/h forward speed with metering plate P1, with angle of inclination 50° was 18.35 cm, 17.67 cm and 17.98 cm for PMH-1, PIONEER-3396 and PMH-10 seeds, respectively. The overall quality of feed index obtained with the parameters are 83.38%, 87.20% and 85.40% for PMH-1, PIONEER-3396 and PMH-10 seeds, respectively, which was higher than other parameters and seed rate of (6.70, 6.75 and 6.70) kg/acre for PMH-1, PIONEER-3396 and PMH-10 seeds, respectively.