Monitoring of Operational Parameters of Unisem Pneumatic Planter and Modeling of Planting Uniformity by Image Processing

The purpose of this research was to introduce a new laboratory test procedure which could be used under field condition. In this context, the performance of a pneumatic planter was investigated under laboratory conditions for maize, castor, fababean, sorghum, sugarbeet, watermelon and cucumber seeds. The effect of operational speed and vacuum pressure were evaluated by examining the quality of feed index, precision in spacing (coefficient of variation), miss index and multiple indexes. The most suitable operating parameter values for maize, castor, sorghum and sugar beet seeds were obtained at the first level of operating speed and 4.0 kpa pressure; for watermelon seed: second level of speed and 4.5 kpa pressure; for cucumber seed: first level of speed and 4.5 kpa pressure. Furthermore, in order to determine the relationship between most important operating parameters affecting the performance of the Pneumatic metering device and seed physical properties, regression models were developed. According to the results, the vacuum pressure of Pneumatic planter could suitability and acceptably be described by two final models with values of root mean square error 6.7×10-2 and 5.7×10-2 and reduced chi-square 8.2×10-2 and 5.6×10-2 for the first and second model, respectively.