TEST METHOD FOR PRECISION SEED SINGULATION SYSTEMS

Abstract. Seed singulation systems are important devices, especially for precision corn planters. While various evaluation methods have been developed to assess the performance of precision planters holistically, methods designed to evaluate seed singulation systems have been limited to determining seed spacing or frequency. In this work, a novel method to thoroughly assess singulation system performance was proposed. The singulation system performance characteristics were defined in terms of five parameters fully describing the seed exit trajectory, with temporal seed spacing as a sixth parameter. A video recording setup that allowed simultaneous recording of front and side views in combination with image processing algorithms was used to collect the data. This method was tested in the evaluation of two precision singulation metering systems. The method was effective in determining the temporal spacing between seeds and the trajectory of individual seeds and allowed a detailed comparison between the singulation performance of a John Deere ProMAX 40 metering disk and a standard John Deere corn disk.