Journal of Ergonomics
Open Access

Abstract

Ergonomics of Manual Transplanting Operations with Female Workers in Eastern India

Mitaie Inthiyaz*, Jayanarayan Mishra, Santosh Kumar Mohanty, Padma Lochan Pradhan and Debaraj Behera

Rice is the most important cereal food crop of India. The total production of rice is estimated at record 116.42 million tones and has area of 43.79 million hectares under rice cultivation. Rice is the basic food crop and being a tropical plant, it flourishes comfortably in hot and humid climate. Manual hand transplanting consumes a lot of energy and time and full of fatigue, but the poor socio-economic condition of the farmers does not allow them to adopt power operated transplanter. Transplanting operation by different research centers have been developed as tworow and three-row paddy transplanter. Keeping this in view fifteen female subjects were selected in the age group 18-45 years. The HR work, HR rest, Oxygen Consumption Rate (OCR), Relative Cost of Work Load (RCWL) and Energy Expenditure Rate (EER) were reduced from 130.8 beats/min to 127.7 beats/min, 70.6 beats/min to 70.2 beats/min, 1.02 l/min to 0.9 l/min, 59.6 percent to 57.8 percent and 21.3 to 20.7 from three-row transplanter to tworow transplanter. All these planters have their own limitations and restrictions. Hence, the present study was undertaken to evaluate the transplanters which will be helpful for the farmers to select the suitable transplanter. The transplanters were evaluated in terms of planting parameters like missing hills, floating hills and buried hills. The field capacity, planting efficiency and field efficiency were also measured to recommend a suitable machine. Threerow manual rice transplanter was found to be better in performance on the basis of total unproductive hills (6.9%), planting efficiency (93%), and field efficiency (72%). The draft requirement for two-row and three-row manual rice transplanter was found to be 7.2 kg and 8.2 kg respectively. The cost of operation for two-row and three-row manual rice transplanter was found to be Rs 7300/ha and Rs 9250/ha respectively.

Published Date: 2021-05-21; Received Date: 2021-04-30