Abstract
Aim of study: The aim of this study was to develop a riding-type fully automatic vegetable seedling transplanter enabling continuous transplanting work on 2 rows simultaneously with plug seedlings fed automatically.Material and methods: In design, the transplanter consists of a 4-wheel drive system, a seedling pick-up mechanism, a seedling feeding mechanism, a rotation discharging mechanism, a 2-row planting mechanisms, and a multi-source control unit. The 4-wheel drive system is a riding type well adapting to slops. The seedling pick-up mechanism could extract several seedlings at a time from the tray cells conveyed by the feeding mechanism, and then transfer them to the rotation discharging mechanism where they would be released into the 2-row planting mechanisms. The multi-source control unit was constructed to carry out the flexible automation of seedling transplanting. Being the first prototype, the performance tests under actual production conditions were conducted on a vegetable base.Main results: The testing results showed that the developed fully automatic transplanter could well grasp seedlings from the trays, transfer them, discharge them, and plant them into the ground. The success ratio in picking up seedlings and the qualified percent in planting seedlings were all up to 90%, and the coefficient of variation of plant spacing was less than 5% at the working speed of 60 plants row-1 min-1.Research highlights: The overall planting effects could well meet the requirements of agronomy cultivation, and the quality of automatic transplanting was satisfactory
Highlights
Vegetable is a kind of vital and necessary agricultural product in urban and rural residents' life, and it is a considerable livelihood issue to ensure the vegetable supply
The shortage of skilled labors and the increase of labor cost have strongly demanded China and other countries to develop vegetable transplanters that allow for high-speed operation and labor saving (Prasanna & Raheman, 2008; Zhang et al, 2013; Mao et al, 2014)
The goal of this work was to develop a riding-type fully automatic transplanter for vegetable plug seedlings being capable of small labor load and evaluate its work performance under actual production conditions
Summary
Vegetable is a kind of vital and necessary agricultural product in urban and rural residents' life, and it is a considerable livelihood issue to ensure the vegetable supply (https://wenku.baidu.com/view/5138888d6529647d2728523f.html). China is the largest producer and consumer of vegetables in the world, with a production of 22 million hectares and a yield of 800 million metric tons in 2018. Vegetable cultivation in China lags behind in terms of mechanization of transplanting and harvesting operations. To speed up the seedling transplanting mechanization can be the priority for mechanization of vegetable production (Zhang et al., 2013). The shortage of skilled labors and the increase of labor cost have strongly demanded China and other countries to develop vegetable transplanters that allow for high-speed operation and labor saving (Prasanna & Raheman, 2008; Zhang et al, 2013; Mao et al, 2014)
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