The PAU Smart Seeder has been included in the centrally sponsored Crop Residue Management (CRM) subsidy scheme by the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) in Ludhiana said in a statement Saturday. The research evaluation committee of PAU has recommended the smart seeder for directly sowing wheat into paddy residues. The PAU smart seeder manages paddy residues by incorporation and surface mulching and thus smartly retains the benefits of both Happy Seeder and Super Seeder in a single machine, it said. Wheat sown in combine harvested paddy fields using the PAU smart seeder emerges earlier than from Happy Seeder or Super Seeder, it said. The PAU smart seeder can be operated with a 45 to 50 hp tractor and can sow wheat on 10 to 12 acres in a day. The field capacity and fuel consumption of the machine is 1.0 acre/h and 5.0 to 5.5 l/acre, respectively. During wheat sowing season 2021-22, the smart seeder was successfully demonstrated on 580 acres for sowing wheat into paddy residues at farmers’ fields in different districts of Punjab and Haryana, in collaboration with CII foundation and Corteva Agriscience, Hyderabad. PAU has signed ten Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with agricultural machinery manufacturers for the commercialisation of its smart seeder. The state department of agriculture in Punjab is also expected to seek applications from interested farmers for disbursing subsidy on the smart seeder. The PAU smart seeder in the CRM subsidy scheme will give an additional option to stakeholders to curtail the practice of residue burning in the region and help in fulfilling the main objective of the CRM scheme, said the varsity.
