Background:
One of the important aspects of planning of the sub surface drainage system is laying the drainage lateral in trenches those are uniformly digging at a desirable depth and at the required grade. It is important to maintain a required grade for removing the required amount of water from the root zone. There is no machine is commercially available which can excavate the trench at the required depth for subsurface drainage lateral laying for small area in India. Machine laid drainage lateral pipes could be placed at the required grade and also it can save time and tediousness to manual labor. It is need of the hour to develop the indigenous machines to excavate the trench, lay drainage pipe and desired grade.:
Technology Details:
Tractor operated drainage trencher for laying sub-surface pipes was developed which can perform the operation of making trench, laying drainage pipe at desired grade and detached from tractor. The developed trencher with above 50 hp tractor can make the trench depth of 1 – 1.1 m with width of 150-160 mm. The operating speed of the trencher was found to be 0.3 km/h. The cost of the developed machine worked out of be 3,00,000/- and cost of operation is Rs.1967/h. Saving in cost by SSD trencher as compare to manual and excavator method of trenching as well as pipe laying was found to be 87% and 79%, respectively. Similarly, saving in time and labour by SSD trencher as compare to manual and excavator method of trenching as well as pipe laying was found to be both 96% and 93%, respectively. The developed equipment can be used by small and marginal farmers.