Vol. 12, Issue 12 (2023)

The functionality of the seed metering mechanism for sensor-based tractor drawn ginger planter occurred in a laboratory setting, aiming to enhance the design and operational factors for ginger rhizome planting. The impact of operating forward speed, cell sizes and speed of chain were evaluated by examining the mean seed spacing, missing index, multiple index, quality of feed index and cell fill efficiency. For picking the single seed based on different cell sizes are 40, 50, 60 mm, forward speed 1, 1.5, 2 km h^-1 and peripheral speed is 1:7 (127 rpm), 1:8 (138 rpm) and 1:9 (149 rpm). The seeding mechanism of the planter was configured to deposit the seeds at 15-20 cm spacing. Observations revealed that the forward speed 1.5 km h^-1, 50 mm cell size and peripheral speed is 1:8 rpm, this combination gave the superior performance compare to other speeds are 1, 2 km h^-1 and 40, 60 mm cell sizes. Lower misses were observed by using 40 mm cell size at lowest forward speed, lowest peripheral speed and higher multiples were observed by using 60 mm cell size at higher peripheral speed and forward speed. The metering system with a forward speed of 1.5 km h^-1, 5 mm cell size and peripheral speed is 1:8 (138 rpm) was produced superior results with a quality feed index was 91.56% and recording mean seed spacing of 15-20 cm.