Crop Residue Management Machines

Table of Contents

Crop Residue Management Machines: Background

To contain the problem of stubble burning in the State, Punjab Government has launched a scheme on Promotion of Agricultural Mechanization for In-situ Crop Residue Management.
Paddy stubble burning is mainly practiced in Indo-Gangetic plains of the States of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to clear the fields for Rabi crop sowing but it can be minimize by Crop Residue Management.
Crop Residue Management scheme, the state government has aggressively promoted two stubble management machines i.e. Happy Seeder and Super SMS (Straw Management System).

Crop Residue Management Rejected by the farmers: At present, Punjab has 13,540 Happy Seeders and 5,972 Super SMS attached Combine harvesters, but farmers have neglected both these crop residue management (CRM) machines.
According to the law, no combine harvesters can be run in the fields without Super SMS attachment.
Obsolete machinery: Punjab has around 18,000 combine harvesters out of which nearly 50% are suitable for the attachment of Super SMS because some are quite old. The state could not get Super SMS attached to even these 50% harvesters in the past four years.
Alternative machinery: The usage of Super SMS fitted combines is also very limited now because several farmers prefer to burn their straw, and few others prefer a collection of straw through a bailer machine, which cuts stubble close to the roots.
While remaining use other alternatives like paddy straw chopper, mulcher, Rotary slasher, cutter and spreader etc.

Super SMS (Straw Management System)	Happy Seeder (HS)	Super Seeder
It is fitted into the combine harvester. It cuts and spreads the paddy straw in uniform manner in the field at the time of harvesting of paddy. After this, wheat can be sown directly with Happy Seeder in slashed, evenly spread and short-height standing stubble cut by the Super SMS. When harvesting with combines without Super SMS, huge heaps of stubble piles up in the field after harvesting and farmers prefer to burn it.	It cuts and lifts the stubble from the Combine-harvested paddy, drills wheat seeds into the bare soil, and deposits the straw over the sown area as a mulch cover. Also, even if farmers do not use HS then this short-height stubble can’t be easily burnt.	It is more advanced and it ploughs standing paddy stubble in soil and sows wheat seed simultaneously in a single operation after harvesting.

For wider coverage: The current available numbers of Super Seeders (SS) could cover only 60% the rice area in the state. So, Happy Seeders will have to be utilized along with SS, as the entire rice area is to be covered in a small window of paddy harvesting and wheat sowing.
Lower input costs: To employ a Happy Seeder on farm fields, it costs almost 50% less for a farmer as compared to a Super Seeder.
Higher yields with Happy Seeder: Due to high temperatures, the wheat yield came down to 13-14 quintals from an average of 20-21 quintals per acre but, the farmers who had sown wheat with Happy Seeder reported less loss of yield.
Advantage of Super Seeder over Happy Seeder: With Happy Seeder, stubble of paddy remains in the field for a long time even after growing of the wheat crop but with Super Seeder stubble is buried under the earth and fields looks clean.