Semiautomatic planting machine based on physical properties of the rush seedling

The purpose of this study is to develop a planting machine for rush seedlings. In rush seedling production systems, the use of plug seedlings has been widely popularized in Japan. However, the planting operation requires a great deal of labor and takes a long time because a large quantity of seedlings that have a few main stems and a bud are individually picked from the mother plants, and are planted in a tray by manual operations. Therefore, it is desirable to introduce machinery into the planting operation. In this paper, a semiautomatic planting machine was manufactured based on the physical properties of the rush seedling and planting experiments were carried out. The machine mainly consisted of planting unit, tray shifter, controller and air compressor. From the results of planting experiments, the success rate for planting was approximately 90%.