Design and Fabrication of Autonomous Machine for Removal of Stones in Agricultural Field

Indian agriculture is traditionally rainfed and dryland cultivation. Farming practices are heavily dependent on physical labour and the rising cost of cultivation, acute labour shortage to carry out the farming practices in time, lead many to think alternative practices for improving their farm productivity in a sustainable manner. About 65 per cent of the total cropped area in India is rainfed. About 45 per cent of food grains and 75 – 80 per cent of pulses and oil seed production come from rainfed areas. In dry regions the soil contains a number of small pebbles and stones hindering farming activities such as land preparation and intercultural operations. Though rainfed drylands receive less amount of rainfall, the intensity during the short downpour is very high which leads to top soil runoff resulting in soil erosion and more number of pebbles and stones getting exposed in the field. Over years, productive lands turn barren and uncultivable because of low fertility, reduced water holding capacity and the presence of stones. Huge amount of labour is engaged and its unavailability is the major problem faced by the farmers. In general, women are engaged in the removal of pebbles and stones in dryland farming before the start of the cropping season. Till now there has been no machinery available to remove the stones from a field. While we have machines for sowing, spraying and harvesting till date no device has been developed for this small but importance aspect in farming. This project mainly concerns on fabricating an automatic stone remover in agriculture lands. This machine has been mainly developed for removing the stone present in the agriculture lands. In this machine we are using the wire mesh conveyor, conveyor with cup arrangement and motor. This is the time consuming process and it also neglects the man power. This process is automatically works by the power supply.