Development and Evaluation of Inclined Plate Metering Mechanism for Onion Pelleted Seeds

Development and Evaluation of Inclined Plate Metering Mechanism for Onion Pelleted Seeds

The ability to place seeds at a given distance apart in a row is an important performance factor of a planter with single seed metering mechanism. Inclined plate seed metering device was developed and evaluated in laboratory for singulation and uniform placement of onion seeds with different pelleting ratio viz. 1:1, 1:2 and 1:3 pelleted. Metering device was tested at three inclinations of 40°, 45°and 50° using plates having three different groove number 18, 24 and 30 on cells. Average seed spacing obtained at in S3 seed, θ2 angle in forward speed 2.0 km/h, the average spacing was observed to be 5.90, 5.35 and 5.15 cm for 18, 24 and 30 groove plate respectively. Missing index at 2.0 km/h forward speed with 24 groove seed metering plate with 45o inclination angle was 5.0% and multiple index was 11.0%. The overall quality of feed index obtained with these parameters was 84.0% which is maximum when compared with other seed treatments, forward speeds and types of seed metering plate combinations with different angle of inclination of plates. The selection of plate inclination and type of metering cell for the planter was purely based on average spacing, missing index, multiple index and quality of feed index. With 24 groove seed metering plate with 45o inclination angle and forward speed of 2.0 km/h was selected for the field evaluation..