Development of Liquid Fertilizer Spreading System for a Sloped Land

A major problem within the agricultural/farming community concerns the enormous amount of manure produced by livestock; one possible solution to this problem is to use the animal slurry as a liquid fertilizer. While there are several areas where this fertilizer could be used, one promising area of application is within chestnut tree fields. However, since most of these fields are located on slopes of varying grades and not on flat land, a different spread system is required. Generally, chemical fertilizer is spread in the chestnut field manually by hand; not only does this require a great deal of manpower it is also very difficult and hard work. In our lab experiment, we investigated the relationship between the amount of fertilizer spread and the length of pipe used at varying pressure levels. The hose in our system utilized PVC piping with evenly spaced holes for the fertilizer to dissipate. We initially found that the amount of spread was greatly reduced by reducing pipe pressure. While the difference of the amount of spread during fertilizing was not great, we did find that the reduction of the spread could be correlated to the frictional resistance of the inner lining of the pipe. Based on this, we hypothesized that an increase in pipe pressure would yield a consistent spread. Additionally, a similar outcome could be obtained by regulating the distance of the holes in the pipe and their diameter.

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