Performance evaluation of an animal drawn puddling implements under controlled soil-bin conditions

Trials were conducted to evaluate the performance of three commonly used puddling implements, i.e. animal drawn rotary puddler (I₁), 3-tine tiller (I₂) and local plough (I₃) under controlled soil bin conditions for different numbers of passes of each implement. The performance of the rotary puddler was found to be better when operated more than twice under the controlled conditions in terms of quality and quantity of puddling. It was found that the rotary puddler gave a higher puddling index and required less energy to puddle the soil. The rotary puddler provided good “puddle” with a puddling index of 50% after two passes whereas, the other two implements required more than five passes for the same quality of puddling or puddling index in sandy clay loam soil