Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) has developed a sugarcane single bud sett cutter, and the Patent Office, Government of India, has granted a patent for it for a period of 20 years.
The bud sett cutter consists of a main frame, power transmission unit, serrated discs, safety cover, stacker, delivery chamber, time/frequency counter, vibration mounts, and iron wheels. A 4 hp diesel engine is used as the power source.
Based on the weight of the engine and other components, 32 × 32 × 6 mm mild steel L-angles were used to fabricate the main frame of the machine.
A type V-belt is used to transmit power from the engine to the power transmission shaft. A V-pulley is mounted on one end of the shaft, and two serrated steel discs are provided at the other end to perform the sett cutting operation.
A protective shield is provided over the shaft and serrated discs for safety. An acrylic sheet is placed on the sett cutting side to provide better visibility for the operator.
A stacker is provided at the top of the machine to hold whole canes for easy feeding. A delivery chute is fixed at a 30-degree angle to facilitate smooth sliding of the setts. A battery-powered frequency counter is installed to count the number of setts cut.
Vibration mounts are fixed at the bottom of the main frame to reduce vibration during operation. The machine is mounted on four wheels for easy transportation.
The performance of the machine was tested at a blade rotational speed of 2200 rpm with a cutting disc diameter of 200 mm. Sugarcane setts can be cut into 30 mm, 35 mm, and 40 mm sizes by adjusting the spacing between the two cutting discs using appropriate spacers.
The developed cutter has a capacity of 1700 buds per hour. The operational cost of the bud cutting machine is ₹1,000 per hectare, compared to ₹6,250 per hectare for a conventional bud chipper. Thus, the machine saves more than 50 percent in time and cost.
In addition to reducing the cost of cultivation, it considerably reduces human drudgery faced by agricultural labourers.
The germination percentage was observed to be 95 percent in protray nursery conditions and 90 percent under field conditions. The cost of the machine is ₹34,000. The overall dimensions of the machine are 1270 × 510 × 1130 mm.
Sugarcane Bud Chipping
India has the second-highest area under sugarcane cultivation after Brazil. Sugarcane is cultivated over 4.7 million hectares with an average productivity of 72 t/ha. Tamil Nadu ranks first in sugarcane productivity in the country, recording an average of more than 100 t/ha.
The Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative (SSI) is an innovative method of sugarcane production. Single-budded chips are one of the main principles of SSI to obtain uniform and more millable canes per seedling. Conventional methods and manual operation of bud chippers result in low efficiency.
