Universal pneumatic seeding unit

Abstract

Designing a seeding unit for the combined sowing of grain crops is a relevant and promising area of the development of sowing equipment. For this purpose, the authors designed a universal pneumatic vacuum-type seeding unit capable of sowing seeds of two crops simultaneously by dotted, combined, and nested methods and providing different sowing rates. Openings of the sowing polymer disc are equipped with built-in metal bushings, located at a 20-mm offset from the disc edge. The polymer material was chosen based on greater efficiency compared to a metal disc: longer life, moisture resistance, lower damage to seeds. The developed sowing disc is equipped with round magnetic pads with a diameter larger than the hole diameter, the ratio between the sowing disc diameter and the hole is 1:20; the ratio between the thickness of the magnetic pad and that of the sowing disc is 1:3. Magnetic pads may have up to four holes with a diameter of 1.5 to 2 mm. Due to this feature the sowing device can sow seeds according to different patterns. When sowing seeds in the dotted method, seeds of one crop are fed into a half-part of the sowing unit hopper, a coulter with one slide is installed and a one-hole disc with a magnetic pad is used. The use of a blind magnetic pad makes it possible to change the distance between seeds in the row.