Pneumоactivation as a factor for optimizing the supply of seeds of row crops by vacuum seeder

The crop yield, especially row crops, is associated with the placement of seeds, and subsequently with plants over the field area cultivated by sowing machines, which is largely determined by the quality of operation of their sowing devices. The purpose of the presented research is to improve the technological process of sowing seeds of row crops. We took sunflower as an example, as it is the most popular domestic row crop, and applied a vacuum sowing apparatus. The design of the device is proposed for use, in which a sowing disk with activating and main suction holes, as well as a vacuum chamber with a shaped cutout in the area adjacent to the seed chamber, are used. It has been experimentally established that when sowing sunflower seeds with such a device, one should rationally take into account the diameter of the main suction holes equal to 1,8 mm; the diameter of the activating holes is 2,0 mm and the depression in the system is about 4500 Pa, due to which the quality of operation of the sowing apparatus required by agricultural requirements is ensured without using a dropper of «excess» seeds. Compared to serial, traditional vacuum seeder, the development makes it possible to simplify the design of the device, reduce the cost of its production, and soften the requirements for the manufacture of the body in terms of flatness and parallelism in the place of the previous dropper; significantly simplify the operation of the seeder, completely reduce the necessity to prepare the sowing apparatus for operation (it used to be one of the most labor-intensive and at the same time the least accurate settings of the seeder); provide the ability to increase the productivity of the seeder due to a potential increase in operating speed to values of about 10 km/h.