Design and Fabrication of High Performance Brassica alboglabraVegetable Seeder for Seeding Trays

Abstract

High performance vegetable seeder for seeding tray in this research was fabricated to response the Brassica alboglabra planter. the aim of this research was to solve the problems of seed loss, long operating time, labors and the human fatigue of seeding. There were three units in this semi-automatic vegetable seeder. The first unit was the power transmission unit which was designed to work with ½ horses power of electric motor that assembled to the transmission gear and chain conveyor. Secondly, the soil packing units was designed for seed or seeding tray type 105 holes (CHIA TAI 105 I type) operated with the soil mixing and sweeping devices to contain soil into the seeding tray. Thirdly, the seeder unit was designed to control seed flow rate around 4 seeds per hole. The proper speed of the seeder unit and seeding tray speed were 8 rpm and 0.033 m/s respectively. The performance could be obtained 138 seeding trays/hr or 14,490 holes/hr. Seed loss was only 12.48 % and seed germination was 85.73%. While labor could produce only 16 seeding tray/hr or 1,680 holes/hr with seed germination and seed loss at 87.19 and 13.16%, respectively.