Physical Properties of Maize Seed and its Effect on Sowing Quality and Variable Distance of Individual Plants

• Main Authors: Pavol Findura, Koloman Krištof, Ján Jobbágy, Peter Bajus, Urszula Malaga‑Toboła
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Mendel University Press 2018-01-01
• Series: Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis
• Subjects: maize; sowing machines; attributes of seed; sowing quality; distribution of seed
• Online Access: https://acta.mendelu.cz/66/1/0035/

Precision sowing has been a major thrust of agricultural engineering research for many years; however, most of the research and development work has dealt with seeders for agronomic crops. Sowing quality means required vertical (depth) and horizontal (spatial) spacing of seeds in the soil with minimal damage to the seeds. The spatial distribution of seeds (horizontal spacing) is given by distance between the rows and spacing of the seeds in a row. The objective of the study was the evaluation and comparison of the sowing quality of sowing machine JD MaxEmerge XP with mechanical filling of ladle holes with holding fingers within usage of seeds with different dimensional and shape attributes in agricultural conditions. As it was observed that shape attributes have a significant effect on seeding quality and at the end it affects emergency and whole further growth of maize seeds. Sowing machine JD MaxEmerge XP reached good results for the quality especially when using the angular seeds. It reached the sowing quality expressed by the standard deviation of 46.95–50.76 % when seeds PR 37 N01 and for seeds PR 37 N01 it is 47.43–48.73 %. Another evaluative criterion is dual sowing of seeds or plants (DRR), it was reached the average value 3.65–2.45 % for angular seeds and the average of 1.54–3.71 % for approximately spherical seeds.