Urea Super Granule (USG) placement in 6-10 cm depth in wet land rice field can save 30% of nitrogen than\r\nbroadcasted prilled urea. But, deep placement by hand is more time consuming, labor expensive and also hazardous to health.\r\nTo solve the problems of USG placement, a manually operated push type two-row fertilizer applicator for puddled rice field has\r\nbeen developed in Farm Machinery and Postharvest Process Engineering (FMPE) Division of Bangladesh Agricultural\r\nResearch Institute (BARI) in 2009. The applicator was modified for variable row spacing (17-25 cm) reducing weight from 9\r\nto 6 kg by changing the construction material of skid and drive wheel from steel to plastic. To reduce the moving resistance,\r\nthe length of the skid was reduced from 760 to 610 mm. Based on farmers'' demand; the hoppers were modified to hold 1 kg\r\nof USG in each hopper instead of 0.5 kg. Field performance of BARI USG applicator was evaluated in four different location\r\nof the country during the boro season (January-April) of 2011-12. Average field capacity and efficiency of the applicator were\r\nfound to be 0.139 hah???? and 81% respectively. Considering custom hiring, the net income per year was US$ 915 (Tk 75??000)\r\nand the payback period was 3 days. The price of the applicator is US$ 43 (Tk 3,500). Use of the applicator ensured similar\r\nyield of rice to hand application of USG in all locations. Higher yield of rice was obtained from USG applied plot than\r\ngranular urea. This improved USG applicator may be used for application of USG in puddled rice field in the rice growing\r\ncountries.
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