Abstract
In order to save labor and cost, direct seeding has been considered as an important alternative to the machine transplanting in rice cultivation. As current seeders for direct seeding of rice seeds drill irregular amount of seeds under various operating conditions, conventional drilling should be turned to precision planting which enables accurate placement of proper amount of rice seeds at equal intervals within rows. In this study, design, construction and performance evaluation of a precision seed metering device for planting of rice seeds were carried out. As prototype, the conventional roller type seed metering device was modified for planting: increasing diameter of metering roller, setting 2 or 4 seed cells on metering roller, adding seed discharging lid and its driving cam mechanism. Through performance tests for prototype and the current seed metering device, number of seeds in a hill, planting space and its error ratio, coefficient of variation of planting space (planting accuracy), and seeding length of $90\%$ of seeds in a hill divided by planting space (planting precision) at setting planting spaces of 15, and 20cm, seeding heights of 10, and 20cm, and seeding speeds of 0.1, 0.2, and 0.5m/s were investigated. Prototype showed better seed planting performance than the current seed metering devices. When setting planting space of 15 cm and seeding height of 10cm, prototype with 2 seed cells showed that variations of planting space and seeding lengths of $90\%$ of seeds in a hill at up to seeding speed of 0.5m/s were within 0.9cm, and 3.6cm, respectively.
