Separating collected seedlings using subdivided air streams. (October 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Gu, Song; Xie, Zhongjian; Jiang, Delong; Chu, Qi; Yang, Yanli; Fan, Kaijun; Yang, Yi
• Is Part Of: Biosystems engineering. Volume 198(2020)
• Page Start: 172
• Page End: 184
• Publication Date: 2020-10
• Subjects: grafting -- cuttage transplanting -- rootless collected seedlings -- air-separation; Bioengineering -- Periodicals; Agricultural engineering -- Periodicals; Biological systems -- Periodicals; Génie rural -- Périodiques; Systèmes biologiques -- Périodiques; 631
• DOI: 10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2020.08.006
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1537-5110

Abstract

Abstract : Large-scale seedling production aims to improve their production capacity and competitiveness by improving productivity, reducing labour costs, and eliminating labour-intensive production processes. With the pursuit of continuously improving productivity, the development of automatic seedling production has become a key technology. However, achieving the automatic separation of rootless collected seedlings into individual plants remains an important challenge because tender rootless seedlings need to be separated into individuals for feeding into seedling production equipment. In this study, a separator composed of subdivided air streams was developed to separate tender collected seedlings into individuals. The air streams for separation were generated by a jetting nozzle array of subdivided air streams at the base of the separator. By opening and closing different subdivided air stream nozzles, in turn, seedlings became suspended with some seedlings at the edge of the floating mass becoming separated. The separator was tested using aubergine and cucumber seedlings intended for grafting and for anthurium seedlings intended for cuttage transplanting. The results demonstrated that the separator could separate tender collected seedlings into individuals without causing damage. Moreover, the maximum separation rates for the collected seedlings were 11, 070, 13, 590, and 17, 100 plants per hour for the aubergine, cucumber, and anthurium seedlings, respectively. Highlights: Tender collected seedlings could be separated by subdivided air streams. Jet flow array was used to generate subdivided air streams. The effects of jet pressure, operation time and seedling thickness were investigated. Separation rates of some grafting and cuttage seedlings were over 11, 070 plants h −1 .