Effect of forward speed on seed spacing uniformity of different seed sphericity in vacuum precision seeders

ABSTRACTMSc THESISEFFECT of FORWARD SPEED on SEED SPACING UNIFORMITY ofDIFFERENT SEED SPHERICITY in VACUUM PRECISION SEEDERSErdal YURDUSEVERDEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL MACHINERYINSTITUTE OF NATURAL AND APPLIED SCIENCESUNIVERSITY OF ÇUKUROVASupervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr.Ali Musa BOZDOĞANYear: 2006, Page: 39Jury : Assist. Prof. Dr.Ali Musa BOZDOĞANAssoc. Prof.Dr. Zeliha Bereket BARUTProf. Dr. Ramazan SAĞLAMIn this research, the main aim is to determine of effect of different of forward speed indifferent seed sphericity on within-row distribution in pneumatic seeder. Trials were made infields which belongs to Agricultural Machinery Department in Cukurova University AgricultureFaculty Research & Application Farm. Pneumatic seeder which has 4 rows seeder unit was usedin trials. Trials were made 0.64, 1.06 and 1.78 m/s forward speeds. In these speeds, corn seedwhich has 0.79 and 0.64 sphericity were used. Within-row seed spacings were measured along2.50 m by hand in 3 replications. In the result of these measurements and analysis, multipleindex (MULT), quality feed index (QFI), miss index (MISS), precision (PREC) and coefficent ofvariation (CV) were calculated.The best QFI values were determined at 1.06 m/s forward speed for each seed sphericity.Results were shown that seed which have 0.79 sphericity may be sown for all forward speeds.But seed which have 0.64 seed sphericity must be sown only 1.06 m/s forward speed. It wasdetermined that 1.06 m/s forward speed was statistically different from others in analysis foreach seed sphericity.Keywords: Pneumatic seeder, Sphericity, Multiple index, Quality feed index,Miss index.