Acta Univ. Agric. Silvic. Mendelianae Brun. 2017, 65(3), 957-962 | DOI: 10.11118/actaun201765030957

Development of a Soybean Sowing Model Under Laboratory Conditions

Jan Turan¹, Vladimir Višacki¹, Patrik Burg², Pavol Findura³, Aleksandar Sedlar¹, Milos Rajkovic⁴, Martin Zach⁵

¹ Faculty of Agriculture, University of Novi Sad, Trg D. Obradovića 8, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia

² Faculty of Horticulture, Mendel University in Brno, Valtická 337, 691 44 Lednice, Czech Republic

³ Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, Faculty of Engineering, Tr. A. Hlinku 2, 949 76 Nitra, Slovak Republic

⁴ Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops, Maksima Gorkog 8, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia

⁵ Expert Engineering Department, Institute of Lifelong Learning, Mendel University in Brno, Zemědělská 1/1665, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic

Sowing is affected by numerous factors, and thus high-quality sowing is a very important task for agricultural engineers and managers of profitable agricultural production. The primary purpose of sowing is placing seeds at proper depths and in-row spacings in well-prepared soil. Plant population particularly gives prominence to sowing as it directly affects the uniformity of plant growth and development. Soybean planting is especially dependent on the quality of planting for yield formation due to the significant vicinity of seeds. Provided all external factors of high-quality sowing are met, i.e. sowing conditions, the quality of sowing depends upon the planting mechanism. The following features of the planting mechanism are the most important: RPM of the seed disc, the travel speed of a seeder, and the values of gauge and vacuum pressure. This paper presents the results of sowing three different fractions of soybean seeds under laboratory conditions. The quality measurement of sowing was performed at different values of vacuum pressure and RPM of the seed disc. On balance, an increase in vacuum pressure results in improved sowing quality due to a stronger adherence of seeds to the seed disc. Lower values of vacuum pressure do not exert significant effects on the quality of sowing, regardless of the seed fraction. However, higher RPM of the seed disc entail an increase in the coefficient of variation. On the basis of the results obtained, a mathematical model for predicting changes in the coefficient of variation of sowing quality was developed using different operating parameters.

Keywords: sowing, quality, coefficient of variation, vacuum pressure, seed disc, seeder, seed

Grants and funding:

This paper is a result of the project TR 31073, "Improving the production of maize and sorghum under stress", funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia.

Prepublished online: July 3, 2017; Published: May 1, 2017  Show citation