Design and experiment of inclined inserted no-tillage hill seeder

Abstract：The purpose of conservation tillage is to protect soil structure, conserve water and maintain soil moisture. No-tillage sowing is the core of the development of conservation tillage technology. Focusing on many problems unsolved of no-tillage planter, such as the non-adjustable space between seeds, seeding only on a single line, high probability to be adhered and blocked, and poor adaptability, this paper proposes a new advanced design of no-tillage hill seeder. The hill seeder is connected to tractor with the suspension frame, and it can complete a seeding of three rows by three planting units at every run. Each planting unit is mainly composed of land wheel, seed metering device, fertilizer apparatus and 45° inclined inserted digging implement. The digging implement is mainly composed of parallel four-bar mechanism, slider-crank mechanism and cam mechanism. The power transmission route is as follows: the land wheel rotates to obtain power, drives the seed metering device and fertilizer apparatus, and then through the chain drive to the parallel four-bar mechanism and slider-crank mechanism, completing penetration reciprocating seeding and fertilizer, while driving cam mechanism controls the opening and closing movement of the duckbill. The design of no-tillage hill seeder has the following features. Firstly, to efficiently avoid the problems of soil blocking, soil attaching, difficulties in opening and so on, this new hill seeder would perform an insertion into soil at a 45? angle with a refined plugging unit. Secondly, this design has added configurable sprocket gears to solve the problem that the existing seeders could not adjust the distance between seeds. Thirdly, the design of the parallel four-bar mechanism makes the insertion of the crank blocks more smoothly with the unified seeding depths, at the same time the synchronization of seeding and fertilizer could be achieved. Additionally, all the parameters of the machine (e.g. rows spacing, plants spacing, seeding depth, fertilizer depth) are adjustable which could bring better adaptability. Field experiment was done in the experiment base by inclined inserted no-tillage hill seeder prototype. The results showed that seeding depth and fertilizer depth qualified rates were 90.52% and 91.23%, qualified rates of horizontal distance and vertical distance between seed and fertilizer were 95.71% and 91.65%, qualified rate of seeding uniformity is 92.13%, replay rate of seeding uniformity is 4.60% and leakage rate of seeding uniformity is 3.27%. The data are superior to the standard value, which is 85%, 15% and 8%. The research can provide a reference for the design of no-tillage planter.