Design of depth-control planting unit with single-side gauge wheel for no-till maize precision planter

No-till planters are very popular for maize seeding in fields covered with residue in annual wheat-maize double cropping system in North China Plain.However,there is no suitable depth control mechanism for existing no-till maize planters,and as a result,it is hard to obtain consistent planting depth,uniform emergence,and good passing ability at the same time.For the above reasons,a proper planting unit with a new type of depth-control mechanism was developed in this study.The mechanism consists of a single-side gauge wheel,a parallel four-bar linkage,a pair of double-disc opener,a V-shape press wheel and a depth regulator,which can adjust the planting depth from 30 mm to 90 mm to satisfy the agronomic requirement under different field conditions.Based on analysis and calculation,the width of gauge wheel was set to 50 mm while the length of parallel four-bar linkage was set to 350 mm.Field experiment was conducted and the results indicated that the newly designed planting unit with single-side gauge wheel performed well with regard to planting depth uniformity and anti-blocking ability.The planting depth uniformity and seed spacing quality were 95.45%and 91.90%,respectively,when the average height of stubble was 22.5 cm and residue amount was 0.64 kg/m^(2)in the field.It can satisfy the requirement of no-till maize planting on the cropland with residue and stubble in North China Plain.

Optimization design and experiment on ripple surface type pickup finger of precision maize seed metering device

A ripple surface type pickup finger was designed to improve the performance of pickup finger precision maize seed metering device and to provide a solution for precision maize planter.The main structure and working principle of seed metering device were detailed in this paper.The dimension size distributions of maize seeds in different types were studied,the gestures of seeds clamped by pickup finger were analyzed,and the clamping dynamical model of pickup finger was established by theoretical analysis.To optimize the structural parameters of ripple surface type pickup finger,the discrete element method(DEM)model of pickup finger precision maize seed metering device was established by the discrete element software EDEM.The numerical simulations of orthogonal seeding performance experiments were conducted to analyze the influences of these factors on the quality of seeding.The rotational speed,wavelength of ripple surface and amplitude of ripple surface were selected as the experimental factors.The average seeding qualified index and the average seeding coefficient of variation on four different types of maize seeds were chosen for evaluating the seeding performance.The results showed that,the average seeding qualified index was 93.35%and the average seeding coefficient of variation was 11.23%under conditions of the 25 r/min rotational speed,8 mm wavelength of ripple surface and 2 mm amplitude of ripple surface.Under the same condition,the bench test was done which showed that the results of test and simulation were consistent.The maximum error of qualified index was 1.95%and the qualified index of improved seed metering device exceeded the original one by 12.34%.The working performance can meet the requirements of precision maize seeding.