Inspection of solid fertilizer spreaders in south-central region of Paraná

ABSTRACT

Rotary spreaders, are indispensable in modern agriculture due to several functions that can perform. But regulation and maintenance of such equipment most often is unsatisfactory, causing losses through lost productivity due to overlapping of past problems caused by fertilizer deficit. Based on these assumptions, the aim of the present work inspect and raise critical points of the distributors of fertilizers to haul in the South Central region of Paraná state. A checklist has been developed, in which through field visits, were inspected. The machines had various problems of maintenance and regulation, especially regulation of the angle of the vanes in 59% of inspections. All inspected spreaders are deprecated, because they presented the coefficient of variation above 20%. The fertilizer spreaders inspection program is of great value and should be mandatory in the states of increased agricultural production of Brazil.

Key words:
agricultural machines; gravity feeder; maintenance