Abstract:Quinoa as an emerging healthy food of rich nutrition has developed rapidly in recent years, but there is little research about the farming equipment of quinoa. Considering the shortage of research on dedicated sowing machine of quinoa in China, a film mulch precision quinoa seed sowing machine was developed. Based on the planting requirements of filmcovering precision quinoa, the drip irrigation pipes were buried in the trench (45mm wide and 20mm deep) between rows dug by the obtuse furrow opener. A layer of film was laid by the adaptive profiling film covering device on the surface flattened by the leveling device. A wingspoon seed storage tank was designed with specified structure and sizes of the spoon, side holes and seed chamber. Six drumtype hole sowing devices (with the radius of the seed metering device as 210mm) were used to dig holes and sow seeds through the film. The whole precision sowing process was completed by covering rows with soil conveyed via the earthing roller. With a white variety of quinoa “Long Quinoa No.1” as the test object, using orthogonal test method of three factors and four levels, the influence of operating speed, length of the seed chamber and seed depth on the seeding result was studied. The result indicated that the factors for the qualification of the sowing machine rank from top to down were operating speed, the length of the seed chamber and seed depth. By optimization, when the moving speed of the machine was 1.0m/s, the length of the side hole was 10mm and the seed depth was 140mm, the machine achieved its best performance. Specifically, the machine had a qualified rate (2~4 seeds per hole) of 85.4%, empty rate (no seed) of 1.7%, shortage rate (less than 2 seeds per hole) of 52% and repetition rate (over 4 seeds per hole) of 9.4% with rate of qualified depth of 88.1%. All these indicators either matched or exceeded the design requirements and related standards, perfectly in line with the growing requirements of quinoa. The research result can provide theoretical reference for film mulch precision quinoa sowing and promote the mechanization of growing quinoa.
