Design, Development and Performance Evaluation of a Pneumatic Precision Planter for Multi-Seed Sowing

Abstract

With the rising demand for precision agriculture, a demand for accurate and efficient seed-sowing systems to save seeds, lessen labour needs and enhance crop productivity has emerged. Manual sowing practices with conventional methods are prone to non-uniform planting of the seeds and seed spacing, especially for crops like cotton where uniform crop establishment is critical. In order to overcome these restrictions a new pneumatic precision seed-sowing planter has been designed and developed, which allows the precise and controlled placement of individual seeds. A pneumatic seed-metering principle is used with the developed planter, which allows for accurate seed pickup and delivery and minimizes seed damage and double or no seed delivery. This system comprises a mild-steel frame, seed hopper, aspirator blower, pneumatic indexing plate, furrow opener, ground wheel, chain and sprocket power transmission system and other ancillary components. The planter was designed to have the ability to accommodate different seed sizes and sowing requirements, with a change-out indexing/seed plate as per the crop. Seed spacing can also be modified for the desired agronomic conditions. The structural design of the planter was particularly emphasized to withstand the operational forces and simultaneously to keep the construction light to minimize the pulling effort. Operating the planter with a variety of pulling sources (such as tractor or bullocks) was incorporated into the planter, making it more applicable in various field conditions. The developed system offers an adaptable and compact solution for precision sowing and is ready to be adapted to different crops by replacing the right seed plate. The proposed pneumatically operated planter therefore provides potential benefits in terms of single-seed placement, avoidance of seed wastage, sowing uniformity, labour saving and the efficient operation of the planter, as an alternative to traditional seed-sowing approaches.