Design, construction and evaluation of semi-automatic vegetable transplanter with conical distributor cup

In this research, in order to increase the speed and precision of cultivation, the semi-automatic tomato transplanter with conical distributor cup was designed and constructed. In this machine, transplants are transmitted by a semi-automatic distributor and through the conical bowls into the fall tube and transferred to the furrow formed by the furrower. In the field evaluation of the machine, these parameters were considered: the distance between the cultivated seedling, cultivation depth and angle, and the amount of physical damage to seedlings. The tests were carried out using a factorial experiment based on a completely randomized block design with ten replications. The treatments consisted of three levels of forward speed, including speed of 1, 2 and 3 km h−1 and two levels of cultivation depth at 5 and 10 cm. The results showed that interaction between the forward speed and the cultivation depth had no significant effect on the variables studied, the factor of forward speed had significant effects only on the variables of deployment angle and physical damage to the seedlings, and the factor of cultivation depth was only effective on the variable of the seedling deployment angle. The most appropriate forward speed and cultivation depth were 2 km h−1 and 5 cm, respectively. With a forward speed of 2 km h−1 and in one cultivation row, a theoretical capacity of 0.008 hah−1 was determined for the machine.