Design and Development of Automatic Universal Chain Type Vegetable Transplanter

Abstract

Many vegetable crops are best grown by growing seeds in a controlled environment and then transplanting seedlings to the field. Transplanting methods have dramatically improved in recent years, but are still very labour intensive. Mechanization of Feeding of the seedlings on vegetable transplanter face many restrictions due to non-uniformity in shape and size of the seedings and different transplantation spacing requirement, since the yield of various crops are determined by spacing of the seedlings. Even today, many transplanting methods rely on human labour to place seedlings directly into a planting mechanism and to determine the correct spacing. Manual Transplantation involve repetitive prolonged awkward posture which pose high risk of musculoskeletal disorder. There exists a need of universal transplanter which is economical, effective, ergonomically fit and transplant the seedlings at uniform predefined spacing irrespective of shape and size. Chain Type vegetable transplanter could be the solution to the above discussed problems. The designed transplanter enables the farmers to plant the seedling tape of any shape/size at desired plant to plant distance and to do so rapidly, thereby quickly disposing the seedlings at precise depth, properly oriented and at correctly spaced intervals. This can be achieved in certain steps, which involves the steps of unwinding the honeycomb arranged plant tape in seedling tray, making furrow in the ground, cutting the tape & placing it in furrow in the ground, and pressing it firmly in furrow.  There is also provision to adjust the plant-to-plant spacing using the gear shifter and number of cutting blades to adjust the distance between two simultaneous seedlings drop in furrow. Transplantation speed of 71 Plants per minutes can be achieved thus saving time of transplantation, labour need and cost of transplantation.