Work Capacity of Compost Applicator on Paddy Field Iqbal, Muhammad Reza Fikri Azhar, Mahmud Achmad dan Muhammad Tahir Sapsal
Universitas Hasanuddin
Abstract
The addition of compost (organic fertilizer) is very important to maintain the productivity of agricultural land. Nutrients have a role in plant growth and development, especially in paddy plants. The application of distributing compost (organic fertilizer) on agricultural land requires considerable energy and costs, especially if the land is large. To overcome this, an applicator is used to reduce costs and energy and streamline the fertilization process time. This applicator is specially designed to spread compost (organic fertilizer) to agricultural land with a certain dose. The purpose of this study was to calculate the working capacity and efficiency of the compost applicator in paddy fields. The study was conducted by direct testing in the fields with three speed treatments, namely at 2.71 km/hour, 3.38 km/hour and 4.62 km/hour. The calculation results show that the optimum speed of the applicator in paddy fields is 2.71 km/hour. The working capacity obtained is 0.35 ha/hour for theoretical field capacity and 0.26 ha/hour for effective field capacity with field efficiency of 74.74%.
Keywords: applicator, compost, paddy field, work capacity
