Optimisation of no-tube seeding and its application in rice planting

Current rice planting operations are mainly transplanting and direct seeding. However, many operational procedures involving transplanting use poor quality of machinery resulting in high labour costs and low working efficiency. Here a no-tube seeding (NTS) method is proposed and the effects of technical parameters (travel speed, seeding wheel rotational speed and ground clearance) on the seeding quality (accuracy, dispersion and uniformity) are investigated using a single factor bench test. A multifactor bench test was carried out to optimise the technical parameters based on the requirements of different seeding rate. The optimal value of the travel speed was constant at 0.80 m s−1 at different seeding rates, the optimised range of seeding wheel rotational speed and ground clearance is 17.5–23.53 r min−1 and 81.2–85.6 mm, respectively. A field experimental comparison between NTS, traditional tube seeding (TTS) showed that the seeding quality of NTS was significantly better than that of TTS. Compared with transplanting, rice growth status at booting stage for NTS and TTS was not significantly different with rows closed. However, the number of panicles per unit area was greater which was beneficial to the formation of high yield. The maximum and average yield of NTS increased by 10.1% and 6.7% compared with TTS and compared with transplanting it maximum and average yield increased by 11.6% and 9.3% respectively. These results indicate that NTS is feasible and efficient method.