Investigating the Performance of Conventional Potato Planters in Jiroft and Kahnuj Regions

Subject Areas : Optimizing the use of fertilizers and poisons

Mohammad Reza  Kamandar ¹ (Assistance Professor، Department of Mechanical Engineering of Biosystems، University of Jiroft، Jiroft، Iran)
Farhad  Khoshnam ² (Assistance Professor، Department of Mechanical Engineering of Biosystems، University of Jiroft، Jiroft، Iran)
Moslem  Namjoo ³ (Instructor، Department of Mechanical Engineering of Biosystems، University of Jiroft، Jiroft، Iran)

Received: 2021-08-24 Accepted : 2021-12-21 Published : 2021-11-22

Keywords: Semi-automatic Potato Planter, Potato Planter, Cup Potato Planter, Quality of Feed Index,

Abstract :

Jiroft and Kahnuj, located south of Kerman province, are major areas of potato production in the Iran. According to the studies, in these areas semi-automatic horizontal rotating potato planter, automatic cup-chain potato planter and automatic cup-belt potato planter are used for mechanized potato cultivation. In this study, in order to evaluate the performance and determine the suitable planter in these areas, a factorial experiment with three types of conventional potato planters including two semi-automatic rows by horizontal rotating metering device, two-row automatic by cup-belt metering device and four-row automatic by cup-chain metering device. Three different values of 4, 5.5 and 7 km/h were considered for working speed. The results showed that the Semi-automatic potato planter and Cup-belt potato planter have the best operating indices such as feed quality and miss-planting index in the mentioned area and increasing the planter speed has harmful effects in feed quality and potato damaging. In most of the indices, the difference between the averages at speeds of 4 and 5.5 km/h was not significant and the speed of 5.5 km / h can be suggested as a suitable planting speed for all three workers in Jiroft and Kahnuj regions.