Soil infiltration capacity is one of the key factors in the soil protection against unfavourable effects of water erosion. The purpose of its measuring was to compare and evaluate the changes of the soil physical properties and of water infiltration into soil caused by different intensity of soil cultivation at two individual sites. The ploughing (PL), shallow tillage (ST), and direct drilling (NT) effects on the soil physical properties, water infiltration into soil, and soil surface coverage with the crop residua under the soil condition loamy Haplic in soil. The variant with ploughing showed water saturation in the top layer, the variants with reduced tillage were characterised by vertical macropores and crack effects with the water drain into deeper layers. Ploughing proved its advantage for the short-term rainfall retention. Similar results were also brought in the evaluation on the plot with clay soil (Klapý). The loosening effect was evident during coloured water infiltration in the period of snow thawing. The loosed soil layer showed a significantly higher soil water holding capacity as compared with variants with reduced soil tillage. The result showed major differences in the water infiltration rate into soil and different characters of water infiltration into soil at different soil tillage.

155Trans-planting seedlings of flowers and vegetables in greenhouses can be ranked among the stationary cropping processes. When tomatoes are growing, it is necessary to replant them from the pre-planting containers to bigger silvicultural packets after approximately 15 days. This process is provided by the staff without any mechanisation in the small and middle businesses. The seedlings are taken out by hand together with the ball of soil from the preplanting containers and then they are planted into bigger silvicultural packets with a dibber. in special growing seedlings businesses (Montano Valtr, s.r.o. and Zahradnictví Lysá nad Labem-Litol), flowerpot machines are used. These machines stream the replant process. They fill in the silvicultural bin with the soil and then dig a hole. The whole process is easier but the manual work is necessary even here because the seedlings have to be put in manually. This paper is aimed at this work.The fact that industrial Robots and Manipulators (henceforth iR+M) can be used for this operation has been pointed out by a number of authors. it was already Krutz (1983) who recommended the application of iR+M for trans-planting seedlings, mainly due to the monotonous character of this work.The research on the development of a robotic transplanter and its components began several years ago. Hwang and Sistler (1986) developed a commercial pepper transplanter using a basic robotic manipulator. Simonton (1991) developed an endeffector for the handling and manipulating of geranium cuttings. He controlled the position, velocity, and force of the end-effector to minimise damage to the petioles and main stem. An end-effector which utilises a rack and pinion mechanism was developed by Kim et al. (1995). The end-effector converted the rotational motion of the stepping motor to the clipping motion of the finger. Kutz et al. (1986) dealt with an experiment aimed at the verification of applicability of the PUMA industrial Robot (henceforth iR) for trans-planting seedlings of tomatoes and marigolds from pre-planting containers with 392 partitions into planting containers with 36 partitions. The objective of this experiment was to define a working cycle of the robot, check its performance, and develop an appropriate end-effector. The verification tests showed that the Abstract: The article deals with the verification of applicability of different types of ABB industrial robots for transplanting seedlings. initial hypothesis was formulated at the beginning namely that the robots with full rotary series and parallel kinematical structure can be employed in the operation of trans-planting seedlings. Testing was performed on real types of robots iRB 1400, iRB 140T and iRB 140B, and using model application. The robot iRB 340 was tested in virtual simulation only. Based on the measurements, it was found out that all real robots tested are able to perform the operation of seedlings trans-planting involving 36 plants with the cycle duration below 2.7 min and at 100% success rate. Within the given rang...

For the measurement of the infiltration speed under operational conditions, we were equipped by a rain simulator with the measuring surface of 0.5 m 2 . The infiltration speed is determined from the defined rain intensity and water surface runoff from the measured surface. The retained water mass from the surface runoff is recorded at regular time intervals over the whole measuring period. The beginning of the water runoff from the measured surface indicates the beginning of elutriation. The measuring time is finished after the infiltration speed has been stabilised. The beginning of elutriation and infiltration speed stabilisation are typical and mutually comparable parameters for defined soil properties at the site followed.

After spring barley harvest the operational effects of tillers and seed drill on spring barley residues were evaluated in two variants of cultural operations. Generally low values of soil surface coverage by crop residues after cultural operations were performed document that soil tillage and sowing did not comply with the criteria for conservation technologies -the coverage of soil surface by crop residues was lower by 30% after all cultural operations. After silage maize harvest we determined the weight of maize crop residues and coverage of soil surface by these residues after shallow tillage by a disk tiller when nine variants of the operating mode of the tiller were used. Obviously, the change in the operating mode of the tiller was able to influence the coverage of soil surface by maize residues. The evaluation of the operational effects of disc tiller on crop residues indicated some restraints of the use of this group of implements for conservation (erosion-control) technologies of soil tillage.