Technical evaluation of transplanters' performance for potted seedlings

Abstract

: This research was conducted to evaluate the performance of disc, carrousel and dibble-type transplanters for potted tomato and watermelon seedlings in field conditions. Intra row distance, transplantation depth, the gripping force of seedlings to the soil, vertical position, damage of seedling and seedling survival rate were determined to evaluate performance of transplanters. The disc and carrousel-type transplanters place the seedlings into furrow and the dibble-type transplanter places the seedlings into the holes. According to field experiment results, distribution uniformity of intra row distance of dibble and carrousel-type transplanters were very well with the coefficient of variations between 3.52% and 5.55%. The highest transplantation depth was obtained when the carrousel-type transplanter was used. The disc and carrousel-type transplanters placed the seedlings into furrow, increasing the gripping force between seedlings and soil. The angle between the seedlings and vertical plane was under the 30° for all transplanters used. Only the disc-type transplanter damaged seedlings over 3%. The survival rate of seedlings for all transplanters were higher than 90% and this rate is acceptable for transplanting vegetable seedlings