ABSTRACT
A good drainage system is critical during irrigated rice sowing; therefore, earth dikes are built to control water flows. Therefore, irrigation depths can be regulated by these dikes' openings, being performed in a variety of ways. Studying time and motion of different agricultural practices consists of a meaningful tool to gather data on the performance of these mechanisms. Given that, we aimed to test the performance of five equipment used in paddies to close earth dikes opened for drainage purposes (rice-dike plow, ditcher, bucket scraper, cutting shovel and a prototype developed for this operation) in two different areas (hills and lowland). After evaluation, we concluded that there are differences among the assessed equipment and, the developed prototype had the best results for total time of operation, time efficiency, effective field capacity and fuel consumption by dike.
drains; paddy farming; efficiency
