Comparison of Vacuum and Belt Seeders for Vegetable Planting

Parish, R. L.; Bergeron, P. E.; Bracy, Regina P.

doi:10.13031/2013.26264

“…This variation, coupled with its high drop height, could explain the relatively poor seed placement precision of vacuum planters. This hypothesis is supported by the findings of other researchers who also found seed placement accuracy of vacuum planters to be significantly worse than that of belt planters (Parish et al, 1991;Bracy and Parish, 1998;Bracy et al, 1999;Bracy and Parish, 2001). In these studies, seeds were deposited on a greased board which prevented seeds from bouncing and rolling.…”

Section: Conventional Vacuum and Belt Planter Performancesupporting

confidence: 60%

Improving Seed Spacing Uniformity of Precision Vegetable Planters

2015

2015 ASABE International Meeting

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ABSTRACT. Equidistant, uniform seed placement is important in lettuce productionlthough vegetable seeds are typically sown with precision planters, seed placement uniformity is surprisingly poor. Research studies with raw and pelleted seeds have shown that typically, only about two-thirds of the seeds planted with precision planters are placed within 3.8 cm of the target spacing (Kachman and Smith, 1995;Parish and Bracy, 1998;Bracy et al., 1999;Panning et al., 2000;Bracy and Parish, 2003). This level of precision can be problematic for crops such as iceberg and romaine lettuce (Latuca sativa L.) where seed is typically densely sown at roughly 5 cm spacing to ensure adequate stand establishment. Following germination, the crop is thinned to the desired final plant spacing of 20 to 30 cm to optimize head size and quality. Conventionally, this task is performed manually by workers equipped with hand hoes. When plants are spaced close together, extra time and care is required to remove the excess seedlings without injuring the "saved" crop plant. In 2012, automated machines for thinning lettuce were commercialized (Siemens, 2014). These machines utilize a camera-based machine vision system to detect plants and an herbicidal spray to thin unwanted seedlings. Their adoption has been limited, however, due in part to poor performance when plants are irregularly spaced. One problem is that the image processing algorithms used by these machines cannot identify individual seedlings without visible separation between leaves on adjacent plants. Thus, when closely spaced plants have overlapping leaves, the system identifies the two plants as a single plant and both seedlings are left in field. This results in increased labor costs during the subsequent hand weeding operation where weeds and any remaining closely spaced crop plants are removed.A further drawback of closely spaced plants is the risk of herbicidal spray drifting onto the saved crop plant. Typically, a buffer distance of at least 1.0 cm is required between leaf edges of adjacent plants to prevent crop injury. Since lettuce is thinned when plants are about 2.0 cm in diameter, plant spacing must be greater than 3.0 cm in order for automated machines to operate properly.In lettuce production, the two most common types of precision planters used are belt and vacuum planters. The basic design of these planters hasn't changed significantly

show abstract

“…Since one of the main goals in the planting process is the uniformity of the plant living area in the field, seed distribution uniformity has been the focus of the studies on the precision metering unit. In previous studies, the parameters that determine the performance of a precision seeder were reported to be mean and standard deviation of seed or plant spacings (Parish et al, 1991;Hollowell, 1992), miss and multiple indexes (Brooks and Church, 1987), and coefficient of variation (Jasa and Dickey, 1982;Hofman, 1988). In addition, (Karayel and Özmerzi, 2001) reported that field and operation parameters (especially the forward speed) also affected the performance of a precision seeder.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Attempt to Evaluate the Performance Parameters of a Precision Vacuum Seeder in Different Seed Drop Height

Kuş

¹

2021

Iğdır Üniversitesi Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü Dergisi

1

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study examined the effects of seed drop height changing depending on furrow openers of precision seeders, and the forward speed of tractors which is constantly aimed to be increased by producers on the uniformity of seed distribution. The experiments were made with a precision seeder unit positioned on a sticky belt trial setup at seed drop heights of 100, 200 and 300 mm, the forward speeds of 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 m s -1 , and the vacuum pressures of 6.0, 7.5, and 9.0 kPa. Maize and sunflower seeds were used in experiments. According to the results, the effects of seed drop height and forward speed on seed spacing and deviation from row were significant for both seed types (P<0.01). The increase in the forward speed led to a deviation of approximately 15 mm in maize and 17 mm in sunflower between the mean seed spacing and the target seed spacing. In general, miss and multiple indices were found to be fewer than 9%. The optimum performance of the seeder unit in sowing sunflower and maize was obtained at the seed drop height of 100 mm, the forward speed of 0.5 m s -1 , and the vacuum pressure of 9.0 kPa. Consequently, it is suggested that, in contrast to what is demanded, the forward speed cannot be increased as much as one desires, and the dimensions of furrow openers that changed depending on the seed drop height should be designed under certain standards.

show abstract

“…The basic design of these planters hasn't changed significantly since their commercialization over 65 and 30 years ago, respectively (David Fountain, Solex Corp., personal communication, 11 February 2014). There are a limited number of reports in the literature about attempts to improve the performance of these or other types of precision planters used for vegetable production (Parish et al, 1991). Most research has concentrated on reducing seed drop height, modifying seed tubes, and/or comparing planter types and configurations to determine which is best.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving Seed Spacing Uniformity of Precision Vegetable Planters

Siemens

¹

,

Gayler

²

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ABSTRACT. Equidistant, uniform seed placement is important in lettuce productionlthough vegetable seeds are typically sown with precision planters, seed placement uniformity is surprisingly poor. Research studies with raw and pelleted seeds have shown that typically, only about two-thirds of the seeds planted with precision planters are placed within 3.8 cm of the target spacing (Kachman and Smith, 1995;Parish and Bracy, 1998;Bracy et al., 1999;Panning et al., 2000;Bracy and Parish, 2003). This level of precision can be problematic for crops such as iceberg and romaine lettuce (Latuca sativa L.) where seed is typically densely sown at roughly 5 cm spacing to ensure adequate stand establishment. Following germination, the crop is thinned to the desired final plant spacing of 20 to 30 cm to optimize head size and quality. Conventionally, this task is performed manually by workers equipped with hand hoes. When plants are spaced close together, extra time and care is required to remove the excess seedlings without injuring the "saved" crop plant. In 2012, automated machines for thinning lettuce were commercialized (Siemens, 2014). These machines utilize a camera-based machine vision system to detect plants and an herbicidal spray to thin unwanted seedlings. Their adoption has been limited, however, due in part to poor performance when plants are irregularly spaced. One problem is that the image processing algorithms used by these machines cannot identify individual seedlings without visible separation between leaves on adjacent plants. Thus, when closely spaced plants have overlapping leaves, the system identifies the two plants as a single plant and both seedlings are left in field. This results in increased labor costs during the subsequent hand weeding operation where weeds and any remaining closely spaced crop plants are removed.A further drawback of closely spaced plants is the risk of herbicidal spray drifting onto the saved crop plant. Typically, a buffer distance of at least 1.0 cm is required between leaf edges of adjacent plants to prevent crop injury. Since lettuce is thinned when plants are about 2.0 cm in diameter, plant spacing must be greater than 3.0 cm in order for automated machines to operate properly.In lettuce production, the two most common types of precision planters used are belt and vacuum planters. The basic design of these planters hasn't changed significantly

show abstract

Comparison of Vacuum and Belt Seeders for Vegetable Planting

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

Improving Seed Spacing Uniformity of Precision Vegetable Planters

Improving Seed Spacing Uniformity of Precision Vegetable Planters

An Attempt to Evaluate the Performance Parameters of a Precision Vacuum Seeder in Different Seed Drop Height

Improving Seed Spacing Uniformity of Precision Vegetable Planters

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About