• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.31 no.4 s.117
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• pp.305-314
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• 2006

Precision farming has been known as an environment friendly farming technology. This study was conducted to develop a variable-rate granule fertilizer applicator as an attempt for introducing the precision farming technologies to rice cultivation in Korea. In this paper, concept design process and manufacturing of prototype variable rate granule applicator was reported. For concept design, some design guide lines were selected. Based on the design guide line and some engineering knowledge, concept design was conducted. The designed prototype granule applicator was mounted at the rear of riding type cultivator for paddy field and had a 10m wide boom structure with pneumatic conveying and application system as well as 1GPS receiver, 1 granule hopper, 12 blow heads, 2 metering devices and 1 controller. The fertilizer applicator had 942 ka of weight, 740m of ground clearance and 1,117mm of center of gravity from the ground. The applicator was designed to be able to $34{\sim}428kg/ha$ of granule at $0.2{\sim}0.8m/s$ of fertilizer working speed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.427-428
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• 2010

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.31 no.6 s.119
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• pp.482-488
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• 2006

Application of precision farming technology to rice cultivation could be an effective measure for rice quality improvement and environment-friendly agriculture. This study was conducted to develope a variable rate pneumatic granule applicator. Previous study reported that application uniformity of the prototype machine (C.V. = 23.3%) was not satisfactory. To improve the uniformity, increase of blow-head number from 12 to 16 was suggested. Analysis of the pneumatic conveying system showed that increase of number of blow-head was possible. Three-way variance analysis of the modified applicator showed that inserting length should be changed according to granule metering rate. The range of metering rate from 27.3 to 417.9 g/s were divided into 4 levels and 4 sets of inserting lengths were determined to ensure CV values less than 15%. The revised applicator showed satisfactory C.V. values of 9.4 to 14.6% in the metering rate. Granule conveying pattern was observed using a high speed camera and judged as the homogeneous flow pattern.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.106-113
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• 2009

This study was carried out to test feasibility of a granule fertilizer applicator for rapeseed seeding in paddy fields. The metering plate of a conventional applicator was modified for rapeseed seeding. The modified plate had new three seeding openings with total area of $342mm^2$. Average target discharging rates ranged from 6.3 to 21.0 g/s and correlated with opening areas. Application patterns of the rapeseed seeding showed M-shape. The coefficients of variation of the application showed 70.5% at 0.99 m/s of forwarding speed and 14.3 g/s of a discharge rate, and 77.7% at 1.72 m/s of a forwarding speed and 8.23 g/s of a discharge rate. The coefficients of variation in the direction of transverse of the tractor ranged from 7.3 to 47.7%. In rapeseed seeding tests using the applicator, seed damages rates were less than 15% due to the agitator, the seed hopper and the seeding plate break. Therefore, improvements of the applicator blow heads and seeding equipments were required in order to apply rapeseed efficiently.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2005.08a
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• pp.188-189
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• 2005

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2005.08a
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• pp.190-191
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• 2005

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.31 no.6 s.119
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• pp.474-481
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• 2006

In this paper, a new type blow head was developed and pneumatic application system was evaluated. The blow head had one operating factor, inserting length of collecting plate, that was directly related to discharge rate and application pattern. To determine Proper blow head arrangement and application height, a blow head set was tested. Three-way ANOVA was conducted to investigate relationships between CV value, the discharge rate and inserting length of collecting plate. The discharge rate and inserting length of collecting plate were statistically significant at p=0.01, affecting uniformity of application pattern. The best CV value among the application tests was 23.3% when the application rate and application height was 23.5 g/sec and 80 cm respectively. The worst CV value was 63.3% in 111.4 g/sec. Therefore, it is necessary to increase number of blow head in a section of the boom in improve application uniformity.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.105-114
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• 1998

Granule application with a boom has merits of accurate application and high field efficiency. In order to develop a boom granule applicator, aerodynamic properties of agrichemicals should be investigated. This study was accomplished to investigate aerodynamic properties of granules and factors affecting on them. The tested agrichemicals were urea, compound fertilizer (17-21-17), sand and zeolite. Basic physical properties of granules such as true density, sphericity, and arithmetic mean diameter for those materials were analyzed. Regression equations for pickup velocity (v$_{p}$) and saltation velocity (v$_{s}$) were proposed by the data transformation and the multi-regression analysis as follows : (equation omitted) where, 0< s < 1, 0< λ$_{i}$< 3, 35 < D/d$_{p}$ < 350, 1000 $_{p}$/p$_{a}$ < 2500 The range of pickup velocity of fertilizers and other agrichemicals were shown to be 10-16m/s and 9-13m/s, respectively. The saltation velocity of fertilizer and other agrichemicals were 3 m/s and 4 m/s, respectively.y.ively.y.y.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.383-388
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• 2007

In precision farming, proper calibration and operation of a variable rate machine are critical to reduce input of agrochemicals and to ensure productivity and quality of agricultural products. As an effort to introduce precision farming to rice production in Korea, a pneumatic granular applicator was developed. This investigation intended to evaluate the application performance such as application accuracy, application uniformity and to suggest how to adjust the blow-heads to get uniform application pattern, and to suggest a practical way of adjustment of the blow-heads for uniform application. Tests to evaluate the application performance were conducted. The application uniformities (CV) in both transverse direction and longitudinal direction were less than 15% and application accuracy was greater than 81%. A simple method for adjusting the inserting length of blow-heads was suggested.

• Korean Journal of Weed Science
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.375-383
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• 2011

This experiment was carried out to confirm characteristics of macro granule (GG) for herbicidal efficacy by using remote-controlled aerial application (RCAA) to control annual and perennial weeds in rice paddy field, and phytotoxicity to rice and non target plants of formulation types. Herbicidal efficacy of GG applied by using RCAA was 93.6~96.6% in flooded direct sowing cultivation. There was no difference in phytotoxicity between the hand and the power applicator methods in terms of height, number of tiller and yield component. Herbicidal efficacy of GG applied by using RCAA was 92.7~97.3% in machine transplanting rice field. There was no difference in phytotoxicity between the hand and RCAA methods in terms of height, number of tiller and yield component. When suspension concentrate (SC) and GG were applied directly on Chinese cabbage, lettuce, cucumber, pepper, soybean and wild sesame, several symptoms of injury such as, the inhibition of growth, yellowish, leaf fall and withering was observed.