Development and Performance Evaluation of an Automatic Saffron Corm Planter

Saffron corms are planted in Iran in the same way as in other parts of the world in a manual way. The manual planting of corms makes it time consuming and labor-intensive. In this research, a seven-row planter machine with row spacing of 25-30 cm was designed and developed. This machine is capable to plant 5 to 10 tons of saffron corms per hectare. This planter has continuous flow cylindrical feeder on the bottom of the corms container that guided the corms to the furrowers by seven outlets. In order to evaluation of saffron corm planter, the effects of planting speed at three levels (4, 5 and 6 km/h) and plant density at three levels (5, 6 and 7 tons per hectare) on performance, percentage of injury’s corms, none-planting and multiple-planting indices, distribution uniformity of corms around the set distance and around the mean of the obtained distances were investigated. Statistical analysis was done on randomized complete block design applying the analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results showed that the percent of corms distribution uniformity around the set distance and around the mean of the obtained distances was 90% and 82% at a speed of 5 km/h, respectively. The nominal and effective performance was calculated as 1 and 0.66 ha / h, respectively. It was also found that with increasing planting density, the none-planting and multiple-planting indices increased from 0.1 to 0.075 and from 0.12 to 0.25, respectively.