• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.12-17
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• 2002

Tn establish the criteria for appropriate seedling production method in the summer, the effect of container size and seedling age on the growth and yield were evaluated with tomato. The seedling quality was higher when seedlings were grown polyethylene in 9cm pots than in 72 cell plugs. Seedling quality increased with increase in seedling age in polyethylene pots, whereas seedling age did not affect seedling quality in plug trays. Fruits matured earlier on plants started from pot-grown transplants for a long duration than with plug tray-grown transplants for a shorter duration. Not only total yield in 4 months, but the early yield in the first 2 months, was higher with pot-nursed transplants than with plug tray-nursed transplants. With pot-grown transplants, The early yield in initial 2 months was the lowest in 25 day-old transplants, whereas there was no significant differences between 35- and 45-day-old transplants. Seedling age did not affect the cumulative yield for 3 months after the first harvest. With plug tray-grown transplants, the cumulative yield tar initial 3 months was the highest in plants grown for 35 days in the nursery, followed by 25 day and 45 day. However, there were no significant differences among seedling ages in the total yield.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.251-260
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• 2004

As a basic experiment for robot hand for transplanting plug seedling, the experimental robot hand system which moves up and downward vertically, and allows hand blade to open and close was made. The system was constructed with the robot hand mechanism, the tray, the plug seedling, and the measuring equipments. The penetrating force and holding efficiency were analyzed according to the soil moisture and the variation of hand blade angle. The highest holding efficiency could be obtained at the penetrating angle of approximately from 0 to 0.36 degree and at the moisture content of soil from 71% to 75%. The external force acted on the robot hand should maximum force when the robot hand was penetrated to soil, minimum of approximately 30.4 N when the penetrating angle was 0$^{\circ}$ and moisture content was 66-70%. It was increased with increasing or decreasing the Penetrating angle from 0 degree and also with increasing or decreasing the moisture content of soil from 66-70%. For optimal design of the robot hand and manipulator, the external force acted on robot hand had to be based on the returning force of soil, when the robot hand was penetrated to the soil. In consideration of safety ratio, the appropriate external force seemed to be 39-49 N.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.259-270
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• 1998

An automatic seedling transplanter, employed an innovative plug-seedling feeder was developed by improving the problems of conversational feeding and transplanting mechanisms. With conventional methods, missing and damage rates of seedling were high for long seedlings over 20cm and also breaking seed-bed was frequently observed. Thus, a pushout-bucket slide-hopper type trandsplanter was devised and tested. Test results of picking and transferring accuracies of the developed transplanter are as follows : A prototype transplanter performed with 1.5% of missing rate. The deviations of horizontal feed ranged from -0.3mm to 2.8mm and averaged 0.673mm for the 128-hoe test tray : and ranged from -lmm to ＋3mm and averaged 0.785mm for the 200-hole test tray. The deviations could decrease with precise manufacturing and lightening the mechanism. The maximum and deviations of vertical feed were -2.3mm and + 1mm, respectively, for the 128-hole test tray ; and were ＋3mm and ＋2.5mm, respectively, for the 200-hole test tray. The missing rate, seeding bruise rate and seed-bed damage rate were esitmate to be 1.3％, 0.4% and 3.5％, respectively, with the developed automatic transplanter.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.256-261
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• 2013

The spacing between plug cells and cell volume of each plug cell for nursing tomato seedlings were studied to know the effects on seedling growth and early yield. There were four treatments. The spacing of plug cells was done (OK) or not (NO) in case of cell spacing. The cell number in a plug tray was set to 40 or 50 in case of cell volume. The growth environment and irrigation regime were the same in all of the treatments during the experiment period. The photosynthetic rates, seedling qualities, yield and yield speed were significantly affected by both of the treatments. The photosynthetic rates and seedling qualities were the best in 40S-OK following by 50S-OK, 40S-NO, and 50S-NO while the yield was the best in 40S-OK following by 40S-NO, 50S-OK, 50S-NO. It means the spacing gives more impact than the cell volume in the stage of nursing but the cell volume gives more impact than the spacing after the stage of nursing. In the conclusion the spacing of plug cells in appropriate nursing stage is needed with the appropriate cell volume to make high quality of seedlings and high yield.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.499-507
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• 2021

Background and objective: This study was carried out to develop an effective technique for raising seedlings of Veronica pyrethrina Nakai, a native plant species in the Korean Peninsula, in plug trays. Methods: To investigate the optimum plug cell size and sowing media, we sowed seed in to plug trays with 34, 21, and 10 mL cells and filled with a commercial horticultural substrate and mixtures of peatmoss and perlite in 1:1, 3:1, and 4:1 ratios. Fertilization levels were set at 0, 500, 1000 and 2000 mg·L^-1. Results: Plug cell size did not significantly influence the seedling growth of V. pyrethrina. By substrate type, the growth rate was highest in the horticultural substrate, followed by 4:1, 3:1, and 1:1. Growth by fertilization level was higher in all fertilized treatment groups than in the control group, and there was no difference among 500, 1000, and 2000 mg·L^-1. Conclusion: The results of this study proved that it is most suitable for raising seedlings of V. pyrethrina to sow the seeds in a 10 mL cell plug tray filled with horticultural substrates, and apply fertilizers with less than 500 mg·L^-1 concentration.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.253-262
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• 2001

This study was conducted to develop the vision system of a robotic transplanter for plug-seedling. A color image processing algorithm was developed to identify and locate empty cells and bad plants in the seedling tray. The image of pepper and tomato seedling tray was segmented into regions of plants, frame and soil using threshold technique which utilized Q of YIQ for finding leaves and H of HSI for finding frame of tray in the color coordinate system. The recognition system was able to successfully identify empty cells and bad seeding and locate their two-dimensional locations. The overall success rate of the recognition system was about 99%.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.271-276
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• 1998

A gripper mechanical design using a pneumatic system was developed to successfully grip, hold, and release a seedling plug for transplanting it. The gripper comprised of two air cylinders and shovel-type fingers. The gripper can grasp and hold a seedling by sliding the two fingers attached to the two separate air-cylinders, mounted at an angle of 15$^{\circ}$ When releasing a plug, retraction of the fingers gives a seedling little attachment to the gripper. To prevent seedling from attaching to the fingers, press-plates were attached to the end of the gipper. Transplanting performance of the developed gripper was tested with cucumber seedlings at different soil moisture contents. Overall transplanting performance of developed gipper was higher than the performance of the previously developed gripper. Best transplanting result was achieved at medium level of soil moisture content.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.60-64
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• 2003

This study was conducted to examine the effects of plug tray cell size and growth media on good seedling production of Gerbera hybrida Hort. Seedlings were grown for 60 days in 50, 72, 128, 162 cell trays contanning perlite, cocopeat and perlite+cocopeat(1:1, v/v). Perlite showed higher bulk density than cocopeat and perlite+cocopeat. Total porosity was greater in perlite, cocopeat and perlite+cocopeat in order. Cocopeat showed the highest water holding capacity. Number of leaves were greatest in 128 cell tray containing cocopeat. Leaf area was greatest in 50 cell tray containing cocopeat. Seedling growth was also better in plug tray of bigger cell size. Seedling growth of fresh and dry weight of shoot and root was much better in the growth media of perlite+cocopeat.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.147-151
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• 2003

Normal seed tubers and plug seedlings raised from stem cutting and mini-tubers ($10\pm3$ g) were planted or transplanted on August 20,2001 in bare soil or under transparent and black polyethylene film mulches to evaluate the effects of mulch material and seedling type on the growth and tuber yield of fall-grown potato (Solanum tuberosum L. cv. Dejima) in Jeju region. Total tuber number per plant was 4.6 regardless of mulch treatment, and direct planting seed potatoes resulted in the greatest tubers (5.14)/plant and followed by transplanting seedlings raised from cutting and mini-tubers (4.15 and 5.15 tubers/plant). Transparent and black polyethylene film mulches increased total tuber yield by 16 and 8%, respectively, and average tuber weight by 14 and 12%, respectively, compared with no mulch (21.16 t/ha and 72.2 g/tuber). Transplanting plug seedlings raised from cutting resulted in the greatest tuber yield, followed by transplanting plug seedlings raised from mini-tubers and direct planting seed potatoes.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.258-263
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• 1997

The result was summarized of basic test and field test to find what quantity of irrigation, what state of compaction and what size of transplanting hopper could induce the optimum taking root in the transplantation of plug seedling by transplanters, and thus acquired the basic data for the development of the related transplanters and the optimum growth and development control. Livability of vegetables after transplanting had no significant difference with respect to for the size of hopper, but was greatly affected by the length of seedlings. The longest possible length of seedling for transplanting and optimal length were found to be 30cm and 28cm, respectively. For irrigation when transplanting red pepper or Chinese cabbage it was thought that large-sized hopper was appropriate. The livability of plug seedling 10 days after transplantation was mainly affected by soil moisture content. Consequently it was thought no irrigation would be needed when transplanting at the soil moisture content of more than 18% ; irrigation of more than 50cc would be needed at the soil moisture content of 13% : initial irrigation of more than 100cc and subsequent irrigation would be needed at the soil moisture content of less than 3.8%. The improvement of soil compaction method (left and right side compaction) with conventional semi-automatic transplanter was not necessary, since there was no difference in livability depending on the compaction methods, left-right side compaction or back-forth-left-right side compaction.