Current Developments in Seeders and Transplanters for Vegetable Crops

Abstract

<jats:p>This article is a review of the current status in planting and transplanting equipment and practices for vegetable crops. A review of horticultural and agricultural engineering literature is supplemented by information from an informal survey of members of American Society of Agricultural Engineers (ASAE) committee PM-48, Fruit and Vegetable Production Engineering, and other engineers and horticulturists working in this field. Areas covered include precision seed metering, seed placement, and high-speed transplanting with automated plant handling.</jats:p>

A Field Vegetable Transplanter for Use in Both Tilled and No-Till Soils

“…Their transplanter was equipped with a vertical pocket-type feeding system instead of a horizontal carousel rotary cup. Using a transplanter with a horizontal carousel rotary cup (instead of a vertical descending cup or pocket-type feeding system) allows the operators to place several seedlings rapidly and then allows a brief time to untangle seedlings or remove seedlings from cells, rather than having to maintain the exact timing for each seedling (Parish, 2005).…”

“…To achieve the best results, conservation tillage should be combined with the use of cover crops managed as living or dead mulch in order to cover the soil and prevent weed growth and soil erosion risks. The main benefits of conservation tillage systems in general, and especially no-till systems coupled with cover crops, are increased soil fertility, improved field trafficability during inclement weather, and reduction in erosion problems, soil water evaporation, and tillage costs (Parish, 2005;Mazzoncini et al, 2011;Díaz-Pérez et al, 2012;Mitchell et al, 2012Mitchell et al, , 2017Calegari et al, 2013).…”

“…High-technology modifications made to transplanters for tilled soils have included automation of the feeding system (Tsuga, 2000;Parish, 2005;Prasanna Kumar and Raheman, 2012). The B&B No-Till Company (Lauren Fork, Va.) has developed and commercialized a subsurface tiller-transplanter.…”

Working Speed Analysis of the Gear-Driven Dibbling Mechanism of a 2.6 kW Walking-Type Automatic Pepper Transplanter

“…In the cultivation of pepper, like in other vegetables, manual transplanting is the most time-consuming and labor-demanding task [2]. Manual transplanting requires about 40% of the total operational time with 184 person-hours/ha needed for cultivation, and the results are often a nonuniform spatial distribution of crops [3][4][5]. Additionally, labor shortages in the peak season cause delays in transplanting operations, resulting in seedling mortality and, eventually, yield loss [6,7].…”

“…In transplanting operations, plastic mulch film is most often used to increase the survival rate of seedlings by protecting them from extreme weather [30]. Moreover, the mulch film helps in weed suppression and heat and moisture retention, resulting in better yield [5,31,32] For these reasons, transplanting operations are performed with care to maintain minimal mulch film damage, which depends on the speed of the dibbling mechanism. Thus, the design and development of any automatic or semiautomatic mechanical transplanter will almost certainly consider the optimal working speed of the dibbling mechanism [28,30,33].…”