Performance of a No-Till Vegetable Transplanter for Transplanting Thai Round Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) in Conservation Agriculture

Vegetables are vital for human health and are consumed five days a week in Cambodia. However, the production cannot meet domestic demands due to labor-intensive farming and production costs related to soil tillage. Mechanization is needed along with soil quality and sustainability improvements by the adoption of CA (Conservation Agriculture). The research aimed to compare the performance of the no-till vegetable transplanter with punch-planter in CA and hand transplanting in CT (Conventional Tillage). The study was conducted at the Royal University of Agriculture, Cambodia, starting from January to September 2020, by firstly growing sunn hemp as a cover crop and then transplanting Thai round eggplant. A randomized complete block design was used with three treatments, replicated three times. Each plot was 2 m by 15 m, with 0.2-m row spacing. The results showed that the transplanter speed was 0.54 kmžh^-1, almost two times the speed of punch planter and 9 times the speed of hand transplanting. The highest working capacity was also achieved with the transplanter. However, different transplanting did not affect plant spacing, or plant density. Plant spacing was 1 m, and plant density varied from 10,300 to 11,500 plantsžha^-1. Plant growth and yield were also not influenced by the transplanter in CA, or hand transplanting in CT. Average fruit diameter, fruit weight, fruit number, and yield were 38 mm, 31.4 gžfruit^-1, 15.7 fruitsžplant^-1 and 3.9 tžha^-1, respectively. The maximum working area of the transplanter and its break-even area were 25.2 hažy^-1 and 18.3 hažy^-1, respectively. Using the no-till transplanter may save both time and labor, but its use in combination with CA was unlikely to affect plant growth and yield in the short term.