DIRECT INSERTING SEEDER FOR CULTURE MEDIA

F. Tanaka
A seeder is developed to be able to directly insert seeds into culture media at any desired seeding rate and depth. The seeder is attached to a robot arm to realize versatile automation. The artificial culture media are used. They are made of bundles of fibers of polyester, and 612 bundles are set in a nursery box. Especially, when they are dry, it is difficult to fix seeds on the culture madia because of resiliency of fiber.

The developed seeder is composed of an inserting part and a seed planter. The inserting part is designed to be able to directly insert seeds into culture media at desired depth. The inserting part is composed of four plates which are made of phosphor bronze which has elasticity of spring. The inserting part is shaped like a bill. It holds a few sowing seeds inside. When another cylinder rod slides down through the inside of inserting part, the bill of the inserting part compulsively opens. when it slides up, the bill closes because of elasticity of spring itself.

As a seed metering system, the author used an usual plate cell type planter improved to move backward and forward by a pneumatic cylinder. The developed seeder is small (about 100x100x300mm) and light weight (about 960g) with 17 inserting parts at regular intervals of 16mm in a row.

Tanaka, F. (1992). DIRECT INSERTING SEEDER FOR CULTURE MEDIA. Acta Hortic. 319, 551-556
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.1992.319.87
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1992.319.87
precision planting, seeding, robotics, seedling, fiber

Acta Horticulturae