DEVELOPMENT OF A SEED DRILL FEEDING DEVICE TO SUIT PLANTING IN HILLS

Abstract

Field experiments were carried out to develop the fluted feeding device of seed drill equipment to accommodate the planting of seeds in hills especially the medical and aromatic seeds and that which favored by abundant branches such as Nigella sativa " black seed " seed under study. The evaluation of developed seed drill is carried out through the terms of four forward speed [3.13, 3.54, 4.28 and 4.85 km/h ] and four distances between hills [zero(before development), 15, 30 and 45 cm (after development)] and constant distance between rows of 40 cm. The evaluation of the developed seed drill was investigated through the plant characteristics as follows; germination period, germination ratio, The stem length, number of branches per plant, plant population per square meter, number of capsules per plant, weight of seed per plant, and total seed yield for each treatment. The field capacity, field efficiency, power, energy, and production cost were taken into consideration. The results concluded that the optimum distance between hills was 30 cm to achieve higher seed yield of 815 kg/fed, lower energy of 7.24 kW.fed/ton, production cost of 26.44 L.E/ton and higher germination ratio of 95.37 % with higher field efficiency of 89.41% at forward speed of 3.13 km/h .so the results recommended using the distance between hills of 30 cm and ranged forward speed of 3.13~ 3.54 km/h.