Development of a Pellet Seed Machine for Sesame (I) - Prototype and Its Performance -

참깨 과립종자 제조기 개발 (I) - 시작기 개발과 성능평가 -

Sesame was one of the economical crops in Korea. However, cultivation area of sesame has been decreasing rapidly due to the lack of mechanization for this crop and the opening of agricultural product market. Sesame seed is so small that ordinary seeder can not seed properly. In rural practice, farmers seed sesame with hand and do thinning after shoot emerges. Seeding and thinning in sesame cultivation take more than 40% of total labor To reduce labor in seeding and thinning, a pellet seed machine for sesame has been developed. The pellet seed machine is very simple in structure. It utilizes the chemical reaction between alginate solution and $CaCl_2$. Two material forms a membrane when they meet The uniqueness of the pellet seed machine for sesame were 1) a counter rotating roller for metering the mixture of activated carbon and alginate and 2) swinging plate for submerging seed into the mixture. The prototype machine can produce 30, 000 pellets per hour and costs ￦6, 891 per 1 km sesame.