Pre-extension Demonstration of Animal Drawn Wheat Row Planter in Selected Districts of Arsi and West Arsi Zones

Abstract

The demonstration work was conducted in two purposively selected districts namely Hetosa from Arsi and Asasa and Adaba from West Arsi zones with the objectives of evaluating the productivity and profitability of the wheat row planter under farmers’ management, creating awareness on the importance of the technology and improving farmers’ knowledge and use of the technology in the study areas. Six kebeles were purposively selected based on their accessibility. A total of 140 participant of which 113 (81%) were male and 27 (19%) female were participated on both theoretical and practical training on wheat row planter technology. A total of six trial farmers (One from each FREG) hosted demonstration of wheat row planter. The demonstration results revealed that on average planting wheat by wheat row planter have an advantage of reducing time from3.8 days to one day to plant one hectare of land by pair oxen. It also reduces labor required from 11.3persons to 3persons to complete one hectare of land. In addition to these, planting wheat by wheat row planter had yield advantage of four quintals over traditional one and reduced seed needed to plant one hectare of land from approximately 200kg to 134kg. The feedbacks obtained from participant farmers and other stakeholders also indicated that the technology is useful and applicable. Thus, based the findings, the wheat row planter technology was recommended for further scaling up.

Keywords: Demonstration, Row planter, wheat

DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/10-23-03

Publication date: December 31^st 2020