The effect of different tillage methods on transplanting quality of potted tomato and watermelon seedlings

This thesis was conducted to determine the effect of transplanting quality of conventional and conservative tillage methods which were applied for soil preparetion for potted tomato and watermelon seedlings transplantation. Horizontally carouselled transplanting machine is used in field tests which is able to transplant in bed and flat transplanting. Machine consists of transplantation unit, auger, soil covering wheel, watering unit and pot tray gripper. Six major criterias were investigated on research to determine of transplanting quality. This criterias were, intra row distance, transplantation depth, the gripping force of seedlings on soil, seedling location, damage of seedling and seedling transplantation success. According to field test results; effect of conventional and conservative tillage methods on average intra row distance was not important. It is observed that transplanting on beds increased the coefficient of variation of row distance. As for the transplantation depth in conventional tillage, transplantation depth is found to be deeper than the conservative tillage. Different tillage methods effected the watermelon seedling position while this effect was not important for tomato seedlings. The minimum survival rate of seedlings was 90% for the both conventional and conservative tillage and this rate is acceptable for transplanting of vegetable seedlings. Average rate of damaged seedlings after transplanting operation was below the rate of 3% for both seedlings and all conditions. It can be suggested that conservative tillage is an alternative tillage method instead of conventional tillage for transplanting watermelon and tomato seedlings according to transplanting quality of transplanter.KEY WORDS: Transplanting machine, potted seedlings transplanting, conservative tillage, Solanum lycopersicum, Citrullus lanatus