Development of an automatic rolling system for rice seedlings

The objective of this study was to develop an automatic rolling system for rice seedlings, which can roll up the seedling mat from a 30 by 60 cm tray into a cylindrical shape of 18 cm diameter and combine three rolls in one tray ready for transportation. The system employs a pneumatic mechanism for movement, with a programming logic controller for processing the procedure. Experimental results showed that the mechanism worked satisfactorily at 362 trays an hour, at which speed more than 95% of the seedling mats were rolled successfully and more than 90% of the three rolled mats were successfully combined in one tray. Since there was no significant difference in seedling quality for the machine-rolled mats compared to the manually rolled mats, this system should be favourably accepted by farmers. (C) 2000 Silsoe Research Institute.