Mechanization of taro crop production under egyptian conditions

The aim of this work is to study the effect of mechanical seedbed preparation and planting on the yield and production costs. In this regard, a locally made one-row potato planter was used to investigate the possibility of mechanical planting of taro under different seedbed preparation combinations. This machine can be adjusted to work semi-automatic or automatically. It was designed and manufactured (by Abdou, 1996) at workshop of Agricultural Engineering Research Institute (AEnRI) Dokki, Giza. The study compared between fuel consumption, power, energy, yield, double and void corms, and cost requirements under different treatments. The experimental results revealed that the highest yield achieved by using [moldboard plow, chisel plow (1 pass), automatic planter] at the lowest operational cost of 25.46 Mg/fed and 4.77 LE/Mg respectively.