Fertilizer System for Raitong Organics Farm
‣ Designed a fertilizer system for Raitong Organics Farm in Thailand to improve their current process of fertilizing seeds and soil
Product Manager
Lead Designer & Prototyper
Sketching
Raitong Organics Farm
Thailand
Design 384 - 1, 2
Interdisciplinary Design Projects
‣ Our client needed a time-efficient and safe system to apply fertilizer on rice crops
• Current method of fertilizing is time consuming and too strenuous for aging farmers
• Fertilizer is UV-sensitive and must be applied at night, which can be dangerous
Side view of tractor and seedbox plow
The tractor pulls the seedbox plow which carries five seedboxes. Each seedbox releases one seed at a time, one foot apart. During this first pass, the roller is lifted. A farmer then walks along the field to spray fertilizer. Finally, the tractor and seedbox plow returns to make a second pass with the roller down, so that the roller can roll soil on top of the seeds.
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Raitong Farm's Tractor
Raitong Farm's Seedbox Plow
This video shows how farmers in Raitong fertilize rice crops. A farmer must carry a backpack filled with fertilizer fluid and walk along the fields while waving the spray wand above his head.
This is a slow and tiresome process. It is the bottleneck of the planting process at Raitong.
‣ Conducted research, client and expert interviews to better understand the problem and what we were working with
• Soil consistency varies from muddy to dry - only tractors can traverse fields
• Client’s farm consists of five rice-fields miles apart from each other
• Fertilizer solution is made at the farm and filtered to water-like consistency
• Ideally, our solution should be attached to the tractor and seedbox plow
• Current solutions do exist, but are too large and expensive for our client
• No fertilizer attachments to the seedbox plow exist
• Visited Wagner Farms to learn about their planting and fertilization process
• Received approval to use their farms and equipment for testing purposes
‣ Conducted a brainstorm session with students in our class to develop new ideas
Several students from our design class joined us in a brainstorming session to come up with as many ideas as possible to help solve our client's problem. There were no limitations or restrictions to these ideas. To foster creativity, we told our classmates, "The crazier, the better."
Most ideas were attachments to the tractor and seedbox plow. One idea was to place a row of spray nozzles inbetween the seedboxes and roller of the seedbox plow. This way, the roller can directly roll the soil on top of the fertilized seeds. We did not know how the tractor and seedbox plow work and how we could attach components of our design to them.
We spent the most time elaborating on a design that included a hose with drip emitters to disperse the fertilizer fluid along field.
‣ Built to-scale models of the seedbox plow and a mock-up of a potential solution
To scale model of seedbox plow
Mock up of potential solution
To get a better understanding of the size of the seedbox plow, we built a life-size mock-up of the seedbox plow using foamcore, wheels, wood, and PVC tubing. We also made a mock-up of one of our design solutions that featured a hose with drip emitters that could be wheeled along.
‣ Presented our design and alternatives to a panel of industry experts for critique
• An attachment to the tractor or seedbox plow
• A row of nozzles to uniformly disperse fertilizer fluid (droplets or spray)
• An aerated tank to keep the aerobic bacteria of the fertilizer alive (pump or mixer)
• Attach our system directly onto the seedbox plow to simply the design and fertilizing process
• Use spray nozzles for a more even dispersionUse an electric pump to aerate the tank and pump fluid
through the nozzles
• Pump may need to be powered by the battery or power take-off (PTO) of the tractor
‣ Sought out experts in farming and engineering to help us learn how to implement the changes we made to our design
After our design review, we made significant changes to our design but did not know how to engineer them. We approached a professor and Wagner Farms to help us learn more about how we build our newly designed system.
We met with Professor Michael Peshkin, Northwestern University Professor of Mechanical Engineering, who specializes in robotics and circuitry. We wanted to learn more about what kind of pump we should use and what its power source would be. He explained that the nozzles we choose depend on the working pressure of the pump. The pump could be powered by the power-take off (PTO) of the tractor or the tractor's 12-volt battery.
We met with manager Jon Kuester from Wagner Farms and learned that using the PTO as a power source is very popular in the US, but given our smaller scaled fertilizer system, it would be too powerful for our project. With this information, we decided to use the tractor's 12V battery to power the pump.
‣ We delivered a roadmap with design alternatives, testing procedures, and instructions for assembly to help our client implement the best version of our fertilization system design into their current planting process
Simplified sketch of key components of design
Sketch of design integrated into the seedbox plow and tractor
Our design features a 100L tank that rests on a platform along the horizontal bars of the seedbox plow. It is aerated by a water pump that pumps water back into the top of the tank. The pump is powered by the 12V battery located at the front of the tractor and pumps fertilizer fluid to the fertilizer tube, which has adjustable spray nozzles that spray the liquid along the width of the seedbox plow. The fertilizer tube is connected via hose clamps to the horizontal bar right after the seedboxes. This way, it will spray the field after the seeds have been dropped. The roller of the seedbox plow then rolls the soil back on top of the fertilized field to protect it from UV rays.
Our design integrates the fertilization process into the current planting process. In one pass, farmers will be able to plant, fertilize, and cover the field with soil. This provides a safer and more efficient way of fertilizing soil at Raitong Organics Farm.
In our deliverable to Raitong Organics Farm, we identified areas of our design that will require testing. We provided the testing procedures and design alternatives to carefully outline how to improve our design to fit the seedbox plow. With this, Raitong will be able to implement our design recommendations with the flexibility to make adjustments as needed to ensure that our design will work.
Our final design recommendation