Disain dan pengujian metering device untuk unit pemupuk butiran laju variabel (variable rate granular fertilizer applicator)

Abstract

Uniform rate of fertilizer applicator (URA) practice is disregarding the productive potential of the various areas within the field. Thus, some area is less fertilized and other is over fertilized. It is also an important issue recently that nitrogen from fertilizers may be subjected to lost into atmosphere or enters streams through surface or subsurface drainage (leaching). The place with overfertilization will be a potential source of pollution in the form of ammonia (NH3), nitrite (NO2) and nitrate (NO3) which may hazard people health. Therefore, a contemporary issue is how to give an effective dose at the accurate position and right time for optimum growth of crops while preserving the environment without causing economic losses. Variable rate of fertilizer applicator (VRA) is a solution to overcome the negative impact of URA. It can control the appropriate of fertilizer dosage and location of application in the field. The objective of this research is to design a metering device for variable rate granular fertilizer applicator. In this research, the metering device was equipped with two rotor, which could be operated as single rotor or double rotor. The dose of granular fertilizer could be controlled by the rotation of the rotor. The rotation of the rotor was controlled using digital PID algorithm. The result of variable rate fertilizer testing of the metering device using single rotor indicated that the rate of urea, SP- 36 and NPK are 0.84, 0.96 and 1.2 g/rotation respectively. The testing using double rotor indicated that the rate of urea, SP-36 and NPK are 1.14, 2.22 and 2.1 g/rotation respectively. All results showed that the prototype of metering device can control fertilizer dose of urea, SP-36 and NPK fertilizer precisely.