ERT 453 – DESIGN OF MACHINE SYSTEM IN BIOSYSTEM

SESSION 2012/2013

CO 1
 Ability to ANALYZE (C4) specialized
components and EVALUATE (C6) mechanized
systems for production, handling and processing
of biological materials.

TOPIC OUTLINE
 Seed drills, planting machines, implements for
inter-cultivations.
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 Seeders and planters are essential for the

reproduction of crops.
 Their function is metering and placing in the soil of
seeds or plants or of part thereof.
 Thus, seeders are used for generative reproduction,
whereas planters aid in vegetative propagation.
 However, in some parts of the world, the term
planter is used for a seeder.

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 Both seeders and planters,

 Used as solo machines, or
 Combinations with preceding soil cultivating
machines.
 In some cases, combinations with fertilizing
equipment also are common.
Generative
Generative reproduction
reproduction of
of crop
crop Corn,
Corn, beans,
beans, sunflower
sunflower

Vegetative
Vegetative reproduction
reproduction of
of crop
crop Potato,
Potato, paddy
paddy rice
rice

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Row Planter

The containers at the top hold the

seeds to be planted.  This is pulled
across the field that the farmer
wants to plant

Seed Drill

This is pulled by a tractor.  It is used to

plant grains and vegetable seeds.  This
can make different kinds of ditches
that the seeds go in depending on what
kind of soil there is.
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 One way to measure the capacity of a set of

machinery is by the number of work days
required to complete field operations.
 This depends on:
 number of crop acres,
 machinery operations performed,
 size of the machinery in use, and
 availability of labor.

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 The number of seeds that need to be planted per

meter or foot of row length depends entirely on the
plant population and row widths that have been
chosen according to recommendations.
 The main concern is deciding whether single or
multiple seeding should be used.
 In single seed planting, mechanical planters drop
seeds out one at a time along the row.
.
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 Small farmers who hand plant their crops usually use

multiple seed planting (hill planting), sowing several
seeds per hole and spacing the holes rather far apart.
 This reduces time and labor and also may improve
seedling emergence under crusty soil conditions, but
it may lower yields somewhat because of inefficient
use of space and increased competition between the
plants within a hill for sunlight, water, and nutrients.

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 To calculate a seeding rate.

Seeding Desired Plant Population

Rate % Germination x % Pure Seed x % Live Seed Emergence

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 For example, let’s say a grower wants to establish

a stand of 170,000 plants per acre using a 7.5-
inch row drill. The seed tag indicates that the
seed has a 92 percent germination rate and is 98
percent pure live seed. Assuming a 10 percent
loss in germination due to a clay soil that crusts,
what seeding rate will achieve the goal stand?.

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 Generally comprise one or several hoppers, which contain:

 The seeds of metering parts, and

 Equipment for seed placement in the soil.

 The metering either aims at equidistant spacing of the seeds or

restricted to feeding a stream of seeds into a conveying tube.
 The former case can be defined as precision seeding, whereas for
the latter case, the term bulk seeding might be appropriate.
 Since in most cases the seeds are placed in row, the definitions of
precision drilling as well as bulk drilling make sense.

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 Precision drilling is used mainly for rather widely

spaced crops such as corns, beans, sugar beets
and sunflower.
 With closely spaced crops, precision drilling is
too expensive and therefore bulk drilling is
common.

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 The mean area per seed with drilled crops is

 The product of row-spacing and the average seed distance
within the row.
 Row-spacing varies widely with crops, climatic
conditions and production technology.
 Precision-drilling of crops occurs mainly with row-
spacing between 25 cm and 90 cm.
Row Spacing Type of crops
Narrow Peas and beans
Medium Beets and sunflower
Widest Corn
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 Since in humid areas the water supply allows

generally for higher seed and crop densities, row
spacing in these areas is closer than in dry
regions.
 Furthermore, mechanical weed control and
harvesting methods often require minimum row
spacings.

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 Seed spacing within the row always is a fraction of row

spacing, though under ceteris paribus conditions, equal
spacing within and between the rows would promote
high yield.
 However, realizing a given seed area by narrower row
spacing associated with wider seed distances in the row
increases the investment for precision seeding as well as
for row-crop harvesting.
 This is because the number of seeding and row-crop
harvesting units increases for a given working width.

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 With bulk drilling,

drilling the row spacing varies
between 8 cm and 25 cm.
 Narrow spacing are common especially with
grass, clover, alfalfa, small grain seeds in humid
area.
 Here again average seed spacing within the row
always is a fraction of row spacing.

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 Seeding depth needed depends very much on:

 Seed size, and
 Water content of the soil (soil moisture).
 The larger the seeds and the dryer the soil, the deeper the
seeds should placed to ensure emergence, and vice versa.

Soil cover (depth) Type of crops

1 – 2 cm Grass, clover & alfafa
2 – 3 cm Sugar beet seeds
2 – 5 cm Small grains, peas & sunflower
4 – 10 cm Beans & corns
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 Metering of the seeds – consists of two functions:

 Singling of the seeds
 Transporting them to the furrow.
 In many cases, singling of the seeds is accomplished
purely in a mechanical way, however sometimes the
singling process is supported by airflow.
 Accordingly, mechanical as well as air-assisted
precision drills must be dealt with.

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Singling
method

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 These shape & dimensions of the holes/cups depend on the seed.

 Too large or too small dimensions promote doubles or skips, respectively.
 Besides that, it is important that the seeds get to the furrow in the
original sequence. A long, free falling distance from the delivery
point to the furrow is detrimental; it deteriorates an originally
even seed sequence. This especially applies to small seeds.
 In this respect, the orientation of the metering disk is relevant.
 Falling height decrease.

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 This explains the predominance of vertically oriented metering

disk with small vegetable seed and sugarbeet seeds.
 However,
 Disadvantages of vertical disk with larger seed compared to horizontal
disks can be the rather short peripheral sector available for filling.
 Therefore, in U.S horizontal disks still are use (such as corn).

 Inclined disks normally deliver the seeds at their highest point.

 In order to get a low, free-falling height, they often operate with a parallel
rotating chamber plate in the background.
 The seeds pass from the singling disk into the chambers of the parallel
plate, which then delivers them closely above the furrow.
 In most cases, precision metering requires devices that remove doubles and
triples from the respective cells such as counter-rotating rollers, stationary
cutoffs, or bushes.
 Despite this, there still is an influence of the peripheral seed disk speed and
thus of the travel speed on the singling process.
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 Speed increase, reduces the percentage of doubles.

 However, this advantage of inclined disks is associated with less precise
singling on sloped fields. Their use is not recommended on fields with
more than 10% slope.

 Vertical disk (outside feeding vs inside feeding)

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 Generally, mechanical precision drilling requires a much

closer adaptation in the dimensions of the singling elements
to those of the seeds than air-assisted precision drilling.
 This applies especially to vertical or horizontal metering
disks equipped with cells and slightly less with inclined disks
equipped with cupped fingers.
 The cell diameters should be about 10% more than the
largest diameters of the respective nearly spherical seeds.
 There have been attempts to avoid the need of closely
adopting the hole or cup dimensions to those of the seeds. A
principle used with mechanical precision drilling is as shown
in the next slide figure.

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 The vertical singling disk is equipped with cam-operated

fingers. Within the seed supply these pointed fingers move
close to the disk and respectively seize the seed. At the
highest point, the seeds again pass from the singling disk
respectively into the chambers of a parallel plate for delivery
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 Either the suction or the compression by air is used to assist in

singling the seeds.
 For singling by suction, a vertical disk with suction holes passes
through the seed supply.
 Excess seeds per hole usually are brushed off. At the highest point the
seeds pass to a sectioned wheel, which brings them to the dropping point.
 Compressed air is used for singling the seeds within rather large
conical cells on the periphery of a disk.
 The pointed tips of the conical cells have open access to the atmosphere.
The compressed air removes all seeds from the cells except the lowest,
which covers the hole at the pointed tip. Thus, each cell keeps one seed
and transports it to the dropping point

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 Air-assisted precision drilling needs less precise seed calibration than all purely
mechanical methods and therefore is used extensively for irregularly and non-
spherically shaped seeds such as corn, sunflower, and some bean varieties.
 Custom operators especially appreciate that the seed disks seldom must be
exchanged when moving from farm to farm with different seed varieties during
the season. The investment for air-assisted precision drilling, however, is higher
because of the PTO-driven blower.
 The general concept of precision drilling is, that a metering unit is placed on each
opener. This method allows for rather small distances from the delivery point to
the furrow and thus favors the exact seed placement.
 However, this concept requires rather troublesome filling and monitoring of many
seed hoppers. In case all openers of a machine are supplied with seeds from a
central seed hopper, the supply can be refilled in bulk and monitoring it is
facilitated.

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 But this concept of replacing the row of small hoppers and

metering units with one central big hopper and one central
metering system requires long seed tubes for gravitational and
pneumatic seed transport to the openers.
 An originally even seed sequence deteriorates substantially during
this seed transport.
 Therefore, sometimes a central hopper provides for seed supply to
the standard system of a small hoppers and a metering unit for
each row.
 The investment for this method of two fold seed storage is high,
yet it allows bulk filling as well as metering in place.

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 No metering of the seeds occurs; instead, a stream of

seeds is bulk-fed into the conveying tubes.
 Done by studded feed rollers, fluted feed roller or by internal
run rollers.

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 Long seed tubes are not detrimental to the seed sequence,

since no initial even spacing exists.
 Therefore, instead of individual metering units–as with
precision drilling–metering devices on a common drive
shaft and a common seed hopper for all rows can be used.
 This facilitates loading the hopper in bulk.
 Conveying within the tubes to the openers is either by
gravitational forces or in case of air seeders,
pneumatically.

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 The air seeders allow for rather independent

location of the seed hopper plus metering devices
on the one hand and the openers on the other
hand.

Operating principle of an air-seeder system

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 Thus, with combinations for soil cultivation and seeding the mass of the
filled hopper can be used to load the cultivator tines.
 And for large machines, the seeds can be metered from a tender wagon,
thus saving time for refilling.
 Seeds can be fed into the air stream separately for each opener tube by
the respective metering devices or centrally for all opener tubes by just
one metering roller.
 With central feeding, all seeds initially are injected into a principal
blower tube.
 The seed-air mixture is led upwards and hits a circular deflector
manifold.
 The opener tubes emanate from this deflector manifold.

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 Injecting the seeds into the air stream with separate feeding as well as
with central feeding in most cases is realized with an air pressure
below normal in order to achieve suction. For this purpose, the tube
cross-section at the injection point is decreased.
 Adjusting the seed rate is done either by changing the rotational
speed or the volume of the feed rollers. In some cases, the volume of
the feed rollers is adjusted to the size of the seeds.
 Normally, the feed rollers are driven via ground contact wheels. In
the future, powering by an electric dc motor—as with precision
drilling—may be important, since this facilitates the control for site-
specific farming. However, varying the travel speed with this method
still requires the input of a speed sensor into the control system.

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 In older methods of planting, a field is initially prepared

with a plough to expose and break up the topsoil. This
produces a series of linear cuts known as furrows.
 The field is then seeded by throwing the seeds over the
field, a method known as manual broadcasting. Seeds that
landed in the furrows had better protection from the
elements, and natural erosion or manual raking would
preferentially cover them while leaving some exposed.
 The result was a field planted roughly in rows, but having
a large number of plants outside the furrow lanes.

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 Seed drills have many different types of furrow

openers, which are designed for different soil
types and crop residues (Table 1).
 A smooth, level seedbed is necessary to ensure
that seeds are not planted at depths greater than
10 to 15 mm.
 Sowing is at the correct depth is when 5% to 10%
of the seed is visible on the surface after sowing.

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 A good plant stand has 35 to 40 plants established

per meter of drill row after permanent water is
applied to the field.
 A benefit of drill seeding is that fertilizer can be
applied at the same time as the seed.
 Manual weeding is much easier in machine-
drilled crops than in broadcast crops.

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 Table 1. Suitability of furrow openers in different working

conditions.
Furrow opener Remarks
Rotating  
Double disk Suitable for high residue conditions.
Single disk Better penetration in hard soils but wider variation in seed
placement.
   
Fixed-type  
Chisel Narrow furrow. Good for deep sowing and in friable soils.

Hoe Good for stony, harder soil conditions and for deep placement.

Inverted ‘T’   Use for reduced till in free flowing soils.

Can leave open furrow in wet soils.
   
Runner For shallow depths in loamy non-smearing soils.
Shoe For placing seed and fertilizer in separate bands.
Shovel Deep placement causing much soil disturbance.
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 General purpose drills may be used for sowing all kinds of seeds
from the size of beans to that of clover, at various seed rates and
depths, and in rows at various distances apart.
 Most are ‘full width’ machines with a braced frame and a seed box
extending across its width. The seed is delivered from this box by
feed mechanisms driven by gearing from one or both land wheel.
 There is a separate metering device for each row. A clutch is
included for putting the feed mechanism in and out of gear.
 The seed passes down seed tubes to the coulters, which cut grooves
in the soil.
 The seed rate is adjusted by alterations of the gearing or of feed
mechanism, while the spacing between rows and the depth of
sowing are adjusted by the setting of the coulters.

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Studded Roller Feed External (Fluted Roller) Force Feed

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Flexible fluted roller force feed,

used in conjunction with
movable gear cassetles for seed
rate regulation (Hestair
Bettinson)

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 Internal Double-run Force Feed

 Pneumatic or Jet Drills
 Single and Double Disc Coulters
 Wing Coulters.

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 Internal Double-run Force Feed

 It consisted of a feeder with a line of corrugated discs. Seeds

are dispersed when the rotation of the wheels push them

towards the corrugations and outside a box where it enters
tubes. Both sides are used for dispersing the seeds but the
course side is best for sowing oats while the fine side is more
beneficial for dispersing seeds at a higher rate.
 The studded roller feed contains devices that allow calibration

and easy maintenance of the drill. Most commonly used in

European countries such as England, the studded roller feed is
usually used in conjunction with a multi-speed gear box for
better sowing.

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 Pneumatic or Jet Drills

 With the use of pneumatics for its feed mechanisms, drills can

plant and till seeds with the use of air. Seeds pass through pipes
to the coulters with the use of an air-stream. This type of drill
is best used for single seed roots and vegetable seeds.
 Also known as the shoe coulter  in Britain, this type consists of

a chilled iron, which embeds grooves into the soil. This works
best in moderate conditions and in hard ground as opposed to
softer soil because the seeds can be precisely planted. Any
other conditions such as poor tilth and the discs are less
effective.

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 Single and Double Disc Coulters

 Single disc coulters place seeds individually and it is
not always possible to achieve the same depth for
each seed placement. With double disc coulters, the
seeds are arranged between them and are dispersed at
the same rate and depth. High costs are associated
with this due to the large number of parts required.

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 Wing Coulters
 Wing coulters were first developed in Finland and are
used on drills for sowing cereals. The coulters attach
themselves to levers in the front of the drill. Hydraulic
is used to draw the seeds out after they are placed on a
band approximately two inches (5 cm) wide and
dispersed. The main disadvantage is expense and
draught.

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 Semi-mounted Tractor Drills.

 These drills have a three-link systems to connect drills
to tractors. A hitch is created to install drill coulters
and allow effective sowing. A hydraulic lift control
lever controls the seeds movement. This type of drill
gets the work done quickly and efficiently

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 Tractor-mounted Drills.
 Tractor-mounted drills also take advantage of the
hydraulic three-link system. When the tractor pulls the
drills out, the machine is lifted off the ground to allow
the feed mechanism to function.
 This is used for dispersing heavy corn and often used
in conjunction with combines.

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 Equipment for ‘Direct’ Drilling.

 When the benefits of ‘direct’ drilling were first widely appreciated, a
few manufacturers successfully developed heavy grain and combine
drills which employed ‘triple disc’ coulters comprising a single plain
disc to cut a slit, followed by two inclined plain disc to form a V-
groove in which the seed was placed.
 Benefit :
 more flexibility allowing for shallow cultivation before or during drilling when
needed.
 Methods of sowing depth control which can be effective in soft or hard soils.
 Coulters with fewer bearings and wearing parts.

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 Modern drill designs:

 Provide more efficient use to be made by hydraulic power
to secure penetration without use of excessive dead weight.
 Coulters designs improvement.
 Make it easy to carry out an appreciable amount of tillage
when needed.
 Extra large diameter (14 inches) single concave discs capable of
cutting through trash.
 Narrow profile enough to permit close spacing.

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 Power Cultivator – Drill Combination

 The compactness of many power harrows and rotary
cultivators, and very small amount of extra power needed to
drill immediately behind such machines, make cultivator-drill
combinations attractive.
 Design mechanisms that may needed:
 High powered tractor
 To incorporate adequate lift capacity for both drill and cultivator.

 Close-coupled linkages
 Allow drill to be carried above the cultivator for transport.

 Drill seed tubes and coulters

 Arranged to deposit the seed as the soil settles behind the

cultivator. An arrangement well suited to difficult soil working

conditions.
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 Power harrow and rotary cultivator

 Light crumbler roller
 Added to effect any necessary firming of soil around the seed

without surface compaction.

 Drilling component
 Can be designed for easy separation when not in use.

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Combined seedbed preparation and drilling of peas.

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 Principle of operation – to employ a seed ring, belt or

disc with a series of slots which are just big enough to
hold one seed from a carefully graded sample.
 The seed is carried round in the slot and is positively
ejected when it arrives above the furrow opener.
 It is essential to have a very short drop from the seeding
mechanism to the ground, so that the seeds remain
regularly spaced after they have fallen into the soil.

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Interchangeable choke regulates flow

of seed from hopper.

Interchangeable seed belt driven by

driving wheel C.

Moves seed to repeller wheel D

Agitates seed in chamber and assists

drop through apertures in belt at end of
spring base E

Main features of multi-purpose

belt-feed single-seed mechanism.

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Cut away section of large-diameter cell-wheel feed drill showing general

arrangement of smoothing, sowing, covering and firming devices. (Matco
Fahse)

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There are several types of pneumatic

mechanism which employ difference in
air
air pressure
pressure to
to hold
hold thethe seeds
seeds in
in
position in the seed cells until the
discharge point is reached, and then to
provide
provide positive
positive ejection.
ejection.

A selector finger is used to remove

most
most doubles
doubles and
and drop
drop the
the surplus
surplus
seeds back into the hopper.

A powerful fan is needed to provide the

vacuum on multi-row drills.
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Most
Most widely
widely seed
seed mechanism
mechanism used
used for
for maize
maize is
is aa horizontal
horizontal
plate
plate feed,
feed, with
with notches
notches ofof aa shape
shape andand size
size designed
designed toto
receive
receive aa single
single maize
maize kernel,
kernel, lying
lying flat.
flat. The
The rotating
rotating plate
plate lies
lies
at
at the
the bottom
bottom of
of aa cylindrical
cylindrical hopper.
hopper.

The mechanism is simple, reliable and often sold at a

price in keeping with the history of its development.

Nevertheless,
Nevertheless, other
other single-seed
single-seed mechanisms
mechanisms specially
specially
designed
designed for
for maize
maize have
have been
been develop,
develop, and
and include
include aa larger
larger
version
version of
of the
the endless-belt
endless-belt type
type of
of root
root and
and vegetable
vegetable drill.
drill.

Hopper as well as seed apertures, need to be larger for

maize than for most root and vegetable crops.

Coulter
Coulter have
have to
to be
be designed
designed to
to place
place the
the seed
seed fairly
fairly deep,
deep, in
in
order
order to
to ensure
ensure rapid
rapid germination
germination and
and minimize
minimize bird
bird damage.
damage.
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Fluid drilling (gel seeding) is a crop

Improve their
establishment technique in which germinated
germination
seeds are transferred to the seed bed in a gel
quality.
carrier.

The are various techniques developed for the 'fluid drilling' of pre-germinated
or imbibed seeds in a protective carrier gel are described.

Two alternative methods of germinating large quantities of different types of seed,

by continuous immersion in aerated water or by an intermittent soaking and
centrifugal spinning technique.

The storage of pre-germinated seed in water at 0°C for periods up to 7 days

The drilling of the pre-germinated seeds in a gel with tractor-mounted extrusion drills,
hand-push drills and for very small scale work, with an icing syringe or plastic bag.
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Automated fluid seeding head mounted on mobile platform with a moving belt
carrying trays which in use are filled with peat based compost and move forward
one row at a time after deposition of each line of pre-germinated seeds. (Fluid
Drilling Ltd)

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The
The probes
probes are
are then
then cleaned
cleaned by
by aa
short
short positive
positive air
air blast
blast before
before
repeating
repeating the
the process
process asas the
the
trays
trays automatically
automatically move
move
forward
forward beneath
beneath thethe sowing
sowing
head.
head.

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Requirements for sowing grass

vary considerably with the
climate, especially the rainfall.
Formerly:
Used in drier regions – drill the Special purpose grass seed
seeds into moisture. drills with small shoe coulters
spaced 90 mm apart.
Suitable drilled depth = 13 – 19
mm Currently:
General-purpose drill with
coulters only.

A typical modern drill with

studded or fluted roller feed and
attached harrows is well suited
to the job.

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Other methods of drilling:

Use of a grass seed box

attached to an ordinary corn Some of it is covered by the
drill – allow the seed to fall on action of the coulters and some
the soil surface between the by the harrows which usually
coulters. follow.

A final rolling is usually

desirable when grass seed is
sown, whatever the drilling
method.

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 There are two main types used on unit drill to warn the
operator of malfunctioning:
 Simply detect whether the seed delivery mechanism of each
unit is rotating (a red light for the particular unit shows failure).
 Photo sensitive element which detects the seed as they drop
through a section of transparent tubing or through a specially
designed sensor unit.
 Provide data on the frequency of fall of the seeds. If drop below the
level required by the setting of a rate adjustment element in the control
box, the appropriate indicator light on a console is illuminated, and a
warning klaxon is sounded.

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 Basically, each row is monitored individually,

and common failures caused by bridging or an
empty hopper are immediately revealed.
 The console is usually mounted in the tractor cab
where it can easily be seen.
 Power for operating unit is provided by the
tractor battery.

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Moist soils covered with residue, which may also be wet, can
dominate during the late fall and early spring and occasionally,
in the summer. Although this condition provides an ideal
ISSUE environment for seed germination, it can make it difficult to
cut through the residue. In contrast, hard and dry conditions
may also prevail. Although cutting residue is easier during dry
conditions, it is more difficult to penetrate the hard, dry soils.

Proper timing, equipment selection

and adjustments, and crop
management can overcome these
difficult issues.
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 Condition of the Field and Residue

 Row-cleaning Devices
 Coulters and Seed Furrow Openers 
 Adjusting Disc Openers
 Seed Meter Devices

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 The primary differences between conventional planter/drill

systems and those designed for conservation tillage systems
are the down pressure and weight.
 Since the no-till openers and soil engaging devices deliver
more down pressure to penetrate much firmer soils and cut
the residue, the conservation planter/drill systems are built
heavier and have the ability to carry much more weight than
conventional tillage systems.
 Because coulters are usually mounted several feet in front of
the seed opening/ placement device , many use wide-fluted
coulters .

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 Coulters are added in front of the planter openers to

ensure residue cutting.
Common
Coulter
Styles

Various Types Of Press Wheels

Figure 1: Top row shows common coulter styles and the
bottom shows various types of press wheels. 78
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Table 2 : The description of the various types of press wheel.

Type Description
A 1-inch wide wheel that presses directly on the seed in the bottom of the seed
furrow.
B 2-inch wide wheel that presses on the seed and gauges planting depth by riding
on the sides of the seed furrow.
C Wide press wheel that gauges planting depth but does not press directly on the
seed.
D Wide press wheel with two ribs that applies pressure on the side of the seed
furrow to press soil on the seed while gauging the depth.
E Wide press wheel with one center rib that applies pressure on the seed furrow to
press while gauging the depth
F Pair of angled press wheels that close the seed furrow and establish seed-to-soil
contact.
G Narrow steel press wheel that applies pressure directly on the seed but does not
flex to ‘shed’ soil in sticky conditions. 79
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 Wide-fluted coulters perform the most tillage and open a wide slot
in the residue. This wide slot allows the soil to warm-up faster
(more drying) and may prepare an area for improved soil-to-seed
contact. However, because of the increased cutting surface, fluted
coulters require more weight for penetration.

 Narrow-fluted coulters or narrow bubble coulters, ripple coulters,

and turbo-rippled coulters do not require as much weight for
penetration and do not throw as much soil out of the seed furrow as
the wide-fluted coulters. Ripple coulters with a smooth edge or
smooth coulters are preferred for residue cutting.

 Remark: Wide-fluted (2 to 3 inches wide) , Narrow-wide (0.5 to 1.0 inch

wide)
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 Diagram of typical seeding mechanisms.

Single-disk opener Single-disk opener with

add-on coulter unit

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Offset double-disk openers Gauge wheel mounted

with fertilizer opener beside the seed-opener
mounted midway between disk to maintain depth
seed openers control

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Press wheel mounted

on the furrow-opener
frame member to
maintain depth control.

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 Most no-till planters/drills are equipped with independent seeding

units that should allow at least 6 inches of vertical movement.
This will allow the unit to operate over rough transit, over non-
uniform surfaces, and adjust for root stubs and other obstacles.
 These units are sometimes staggered to provide more side-to-side
space for residue flow, which helps with unit function.
 These units should be equipped with heavy down-pressure springs
and sufficient weight to ensure penetration of both the coulters
and seed furrow openers into untilled soil. Usually these springs
are adjustable and multiple springs can be added if insufficient
pressure is achieved.

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 Some no-till planters/drills are not equipped with coulters (A and

D). These planters/drills use the seed furrow openers to cut and
place the seed.
 Several planter/drill systems have a staggered double-disk seed
furrow opener without a coulter (C and E). The leading disk
(usually 0.5 to 1.0 inch in front) cuts the residue and the second
aids in opening the seed furrow.
 Some manufacturers use a single, large disk set at a slight angle.
These units require less weight for penetration and provide
minimal soil disturbance.

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To be continue…