Development of Vertical Planting Mechanism for Sugarcane Transplanter

Abstract

An efficient sugarcane seedling transplanter is essential for transplanting seedlings grown from bud billets to reduce labor cost and planting time The purposes of this research are to create a sugarcane transplanter that the planting mechanism moves vertically using pre-germinated buds and to assess the transplanter's performance. The device that had been developed was a seedling mechanism that used planting funnel attached to a metering disc which received thrust from the soil layer so that the transplanter worked without sending power through the sprockets and chains to the planting mechanism. It was like the planting device itself was the ground wheel, and the planting mechanism was always pressed into the ground to independently plant seedlings into the ground to the desired depth of planting without the use of a soil opener. It was attached to three-point hitches on a 56.7 kW (76 hp) tractor. In this research, the planting distance was controlled by a metering disc, which had a planting funnel mounted on it. Three different diameters: 78 cm (D1), 86 cm (D2) and 96 cm (D3) metering discs were tested in this study. The experimental works were conducted at travel speeds of 1.27, 1.89 and 2.73 km/hr. and planting depths of 10 and 15 cm. Results showed that the average planting pitch of the metering discs D1, D2 and D3 was 36.30, 50.15 and 68.35 cm respectively, and it showed that the planting success rate (PSR) at a 10 cm planting depth was higher than at a 15 cm planting pitch. The success rate of metering disc D3 (67.32%) was higher when compared to metering disc D2 (59.76%) and metering disc D1 (53.18%). These experimental results showed that the planting depth of 10 cm and the forward speed of 1.27 km/hr. were practical operating conditions.