Can we ever replace hoe in planting? Yes we can…

[zanau]

The use of hoe in Nigeria and most sub Saharan Africa is an age long practice that has refused to die. As agricultural practices continue to evolve to achieve efficiency, reduce drudgery, save time and achieving better results using improved mechanization, African farmers and researchers have chosen to remain in the old practice of continuous usage of the age long hoe long into the 21 century. The use of hoe is chasing young people away from the farms. The constant bending increases drudgery and back ache. Therefore, its important we begin to think of smart ways of achieving same result, even faster and more accurate without the use of the hoe.
This is what we have set out to achieve by creating a Hand Push Rotary Dibbler along with my university undergraduate interns of 2017 from FU Wukari, MAUTECH Yola and TSU Jalingo. This tool will enable you create your planting holes at a more accurate planting depth and spacing as well as fertilizer application holes.
Why is planting depth and spacing important?

In order to achieve even growth and emergence especially in maize cultivation, then planting depth must not only be accurate but also even. This way you will have your seeds emerging at the same time with minimal variation in seed emergence except in cases of dormancy or poor seeds.
Plant spacing on the other hand cannot be achieved accurately using hoe due to the high level of human error in determining the accurate spacing to plant the seed. Secondly, accurate plant spacing will ensure optimum plant population on a given size of land. Plant population on the other hand is responsible for determining crop yield. Therefore, ensuring accurate plant spacing will enable you avoid under population and over population on the given land area. This is a critical factor that the hoe cannot achieve with absolute accuracy. For example a plant spacing of 25cm x 75cm per hectare will give 53,200 stands, while 25cm x 60cm will give you 66,400 stands etc. If a farmer must achieve that, then it is important that we have a tool that can give you the accurate spacing to achieve the result.

It is on these basis that we design and created the Hand Push Rotary Dibbler. This simple tool will make planting more easier, faster and improve accuracy while at the same time reducing drudgery. Using the dibbler, it will create the hole, while seed can be dropped into the hole and covered manually. It is our believe that planting accurately on a given piece of land area is the first step in achieving optimum yield potential of the particular variety. Therefore, since most of our farmers are smallholders and accessing mechanical planters that plant with absolute precision is not an easy task, then the Hand Push Rotary Dibbler will go a long way in solving one of the most basic challenge in row crops cultivation.

The dibbler can further be used in fertilizer application that will see the fertilizer applied being buried at the right depth. This will enhance fertilizer utilization by the crop and reduce volatilization of the fertilizer basic nutrients like nitrogen.
This work can be improved upon to create a better version of it with the ability of multiple spacing and depth as well as be able to create designs that can be mounted on work bulls or even small unit tractors like the walking tractors.
It is our believe that this innovation will further challenge us to continually find solutions to the numerous challenges faced by the African smallholder farmers.
Click here for the Rotary Dibbler Demo

[Josh123]

Whao! This is one question I have been asking myself. How come we have not progressed beyond the hoe? For how many years!!!

But this dribbler thing is really cool! I am impressed! You need to mass produce this men! Well done!

[Achi]

This is a great innovation. The next step would be to seek for collaboration and mass produce this thing before the Chinese see it

Seriously, this thing is revolutionary. Travelling through the country side recently and seeing farmers use hand hoes to work hectares of land, I can't help to think how easily their output can be raised by a simple change in technology through clever innovation as this.

[Yunan]

Where can one buy the dribbler? That's why we need agriculture fairs in this country. This needs to be showcased for adoption.

[tarabaonline farms]

This is indeed a very good initiative! Kudos to inventors of this device. However, there is no word on how to purchase your invention. It will surely go along way in solving our planting problems. My maize farm is 8 hectre large and planting manually has been a very big pain most especially with workers who only want to get paid quickly without following the rules of planting.

How can we get this device?
08060685343