Farmers, using the same machine, can now do the zero tillage and bed planting. The modifications carried in the existing model have lead to this development. Now farmers can sow several crops either in a zero-till system or bed planting systems. This machine has really facilitated the compact farm machinery concept. The further developments in this machine are towards incorporating the ability to drill large urea granules (USGs), which was not possible earlier with any of the available machines.

The modified bed planter reveals a success story of evolution and innovative application of human skill. Convinced of the benefits of growing crops on raised bed and furrow system, the Indian scientists started working on developing suitable machine for making ridges and furrows. The pea planter developed by ASS foundry provided the starting point. Dr. Dhillon, Professor, PAU, Ludhiana began working with ASS foundry and came with the second/third version of pea planter suitable for wheat. The DWR group (Dr. Chauhan etc.) also worked with ASS foundry and developed the furrow irrigation raised bed (FIRB) machine. Planters were put to rigorous testing on the farmers’ fields for two years. Some of the bottlenecks identified included the following: (1) seeding depth was not controlled and seed was placed before bed making; (2) it was difficult to seed multi-crops; (3) metering device and seed rate mechanisms were not up to mark; (4) the size of the beds was fixed; (5) it was difficult to place large sized fertilizer granules with the existing metering system; (6) the planter used fluted rollers for seeding as a metering device and it was difficult to seed rice by direct seeding because of long awns and hair on palia and lemma of the grain, did not allow flow of the seeds.

In order to address the above issues, a new planter, which can both work as a zero-till machine, and bed-planting machine has been developed in close collaboration with the private manufacturer, ASS Foundry. The new machines overcome the above-mentioned drawbacks. The new machine makes 15 cm wider beds and a 30 cm wide V shaped furrow. It is able to vary the width of the beds if required.

The other special features of the machine include the following: (1) improved seed metering device, which help in seed placement of different crops varying in size; (2) seed rate can be varied by the brush used for varying the speed of the metering roller and adjustment of a brush mounted to wipe off extra seed;  (3) can handle fine particle fertilizer and the large sized (USG) fertilizer granules; (4) the power transmission wheel is better fitted with a tensile spring, which helps avoiding slippage, and hence the missing rows in unleveled fields; (5) depth-controlling wheel helps seed placement at desired depth and (6) when shaper is removed and tines are spaced on the three bars, it acts as a zero-till machine. The added spacing provided by the 3-bars eased the loose residue-raking problem encountered in old zero-till machines. The 2-in-1 machine costs ~ Rs. 25K compared to the individual machine costs of Rs. 32 K