Elastic Gauge Wheel with Irregular Cavity for Improving Seed Furrow Structure and Seeding Quality

Honggang Li, Xiaomeng Xia, Linqiang Chen, Ruiqiang Ran and Dongyan Huang ()
Additional contact information
Honggang Li: Key Laboratory of Bionics Engineering, Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun 130025, China
Xiaomeng Xia: Key Laboratory of Bionics Engineering, Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun 130025, China
Linqiang Chen: Key Laboratory of Bionics Engineering, Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun 130025, China
Ruiqiang Ran: Jilin Agricultural Machinery Research Institute, Changchun 130022, China
Dongyan Huang: Key Laboratory of Bionics Engineering, Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun 130025, China

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 7, 1-17

Abstract: The traditional gauge wheel has poor performance in reducing the adhesion to soil and constructing seed furrow, which results in lower seeding quality of the planter. To reduce the adhesion of the gauge wheel to the soil and build a well-structured seed furrow, an elastic gauge wheel with soil retention groove and irregular cavity was designed in this study. The soil retention groove built ridges on both sides of the seed furrow and avoided the gauge wheel compacting the seed furrow sidewalls. The irregular cavity increased the elasticity of the gauge wheel and allowed the wheel to squeeze the soil on both sides of the seed furrow, which reduced the soil adhesion of the wheel and built stable ridges. Soil moisture content was chosen as the experimental factor for comparative tests to evaluate the soil adhesion and the constructed seed furrow of the gauge wheel with an irregular cavity and the traditional gauge wheel. The experimental results showed that the viscosity reduction rate of the gauge wheel with the irregular cavity was not less than 12.61%. Compared with the traditional gauge wheel, the seed furrow constructed by the irregular cavity gauge wheel had ridges on both sides and less backfill soil, and the soil compaction of sidewalls decreased by 18.16%. The field experiment was designed using the Box–Behnken design. The working speed, downforce, and planting depth were taken as experimental factors, and the soil adhesion of the gauge wheel and the consistency of planting depth were taken as evaluation indicators. The optimal operating parameters of planter obtained by Design-Expert 8.0.6 software were as follows: the working speed was 8 km·h −1 , the downforce was 844 N, and the planting depth was 65 mm. The verification test of the optimal operating parameters showed that the soil adhesion mass of the gauge wheel was 123.65 g and the coefficient of variation of the planting depth was 5.35%. This study provides a reference for the mechanized construction method of seed furrow by precision planter and the structural design and performance optimization of gauge wheels.

Keywords: precision seeding; adhesion reduction; seed furrow sidewall; gauge wheel structure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/7/1438/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/7/1438/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:13:y:2023:i:7:p:1438-:d:1199058

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().