BARI Bed Planter
Bed planting system adds a new era in modern farming system. It saves natural resources in modern production system without reducing yield. It increases yield, reduces production cost and facilitates different crop management. In Bangladesh, farmers are practicing bed planting system for potato, maize, chills vegetables etc. from long ago for protect their crops from waterlog problem due to heavy shower. They make bed manually and it is very labourious, time consuming and costly. They do not know how to use bed planting technology in other crops and they had no idea on bed planting machinery. Also they had no idea about the crops which will give better result in bed planting. Considering the above facts, BARI have developed a bed planter for reducing labour requirement cost of bed formation and seeding time as well as higher yield and income of farmers.
Advantages

• Bed formation, fertilization and seeding can be done in  a single operation
• Operation & maintenance is very easy
• Environmental friendly
• Reduce arsenic absorbs ion in crop
• Seed can be sown by bed planter without removing crops residues.
• Reduces turnaround time and helps to increase crop intensity in cropping pattern.
• Every plants and lines get border effect that increases both growth and yield of crops.
• Increased cereal crops yields by 5-20%, pulse crops by 15-35% and fiber crops (Jute) by 10-15%
• Reduces :

• Irrigation water by 25-30%
• Nitrogen fertilizer by 10-15%
• Seed by 15-20%
• Tillage costs up to 60%

Specifications

• It is made of MS angle bar, MS sheet, MS flat bar, bearing, MS shaft etc
• Height of bed: 15-20 cm
• Width of the bed: 60-70 cm ( controlled)
• Distance between bed to bed: 30 cm wide
• Price: Tk 40,000 ( US $ 500) (without power tiller)
• Weight:
• Overall dimension:

Working principle
BARI Bed planter is attached with power tiller that can till soil, make bed, apply fertilizer and sow seeds simultaneously in same pass. Seed can be sown on bed either single or double lines and maintaining seed to seed distance following standard agronomy of different crops. In this bed planter, tines are allied in such a way that tilth loose soils are thrown in inner side from left and right side then form bed. A roller behind the rotating blades lightly presses the loose soil and makes the bed compact and uniform in size and shape. A special type seed metering device which is called inclined plate seed meter is used in bed planter. Round alluminium or plastic plates with grooves of varying sizes are mounted within a plate holder which is rotating during power transmission. Individual seeds are separated along the peripheral grooves of plate and dropped in line maintaining proper seed rate and spacing.
The number and size of grooves on plate are depending on seed size and spacing of different crops. Such as 9 mm size and 24 grooved plate for maize and groundnut and 6 mm size and 35/40 grooved plate for wheat, Mungbean, Okra, Lentil and Black gram. On the other hand, fluted type seed meter is used for planting Jute and Sesame seeds. Fertilizer can also be applied through fluted type meter. Both Sifeng and Dongfeng model bed planter are available. Now seating arrangement are included in both models. It also called riding type.
Field performance
Field capacity: 0.1 hectare (30 decimal) per hour
Field efficiency: 85%
Operating cost: 2200 Tk/ha by bed planter, 6000 Tk/ha for wheat, 15000 Tk/ha for maize by conventional practice