Author : Darius El Pebrian

Summary : A trailed type transplanter that runs by a 4-wheel tractor with at least 63.4 kw for field transplanting of oil palm seedlings had been designed, developed and tested. AutoCAD 2000 software was used to produce a 3-D conceptual design of the proposed machine system. Computations were made to determine required total hydraulic pressure to operate all actuators within the hydraulic system of the transplanter. The machine configuration consists of the main chassis, seedling bin, seedling planting assembly, operator compartment, and associated hydraulic system. results of the field evaluations indicates that this mechanised transplanting system has a planting capacity of 99 seedlings/man-day or 0.62 ha/man-day as compared to 0.28 ha/man-day or 45 seedlings/man-day with the manual transplanting planting system. The estimated planting cost is RM 2.11 per seedling with mechanised transplanting as compared to RM 2.26 per seedling with manual transplanting. Conclusively, this mechanised transplanting system could give 2.2 times improvement in the planting capacity and 6.64 percent reduction in the transplanting cost. A cost saving of RM 0.15 per seedling was obtained with the mechanised system over the manual system.