Influence of the physical properties of sugar beet seeds over the work quality of the seeding mechanism**

Abstract

Biological, physical and technological proper‑ ties of the sugar beet seed, tillage quality and quality of the seed placement to the soil have a predominant effect on the value and evenness of the sugar beet field emergence. During planting, the distance between two successive seeds in the row depends upon the technical parameters of the planter: the type of planting unit mounted on the frame, the forward speed, and the design and the type of planting mechanism drive. The measurements were real‑ ized in the laboratory and in field conditions according to the ISO 7256/1 Standard. The field experiments were conducted on loamy‑ sandy loamy soil where 30% of the soil aggregates were less than 0.01 mm and the soil moisture level was 19.4%. The experiments were conducted using two types of sugar beet cultivars – Roxana (calibration 3.5‑4.75 mm) and Flair (calibration 3.5‑4.5 mm). The paper is focused on making a comparison between the planting quality of two types of sugar beet planters equipped with differ‑ ent planting mechanisms. The first machine was a planter with an internal mechanism of gathering openings and the second machine was based on the vacuum principle. A sugar beet planter equipped with an air under vacuum pressure system caused more damage to the seeds during higher forward working speeds (5.4%). In the case of the planting mechanical system, the highest degree of seed damage was caused by forward working speeds of 1.0‑1.5 m s–1