1998 Volume 60 Issue 1 Pages 19-26
This paper reports the study to speed up the growth of seedlings and to shorten heading and maturity duration of early season culture rice by introducing mulching cultivation using polyethylene film, and the study on the mechanism enabling the rice transplanter to do film laying and transplanting simultaneously for this cultivation. The knife type mulch slit cutting mechanism, linked with the rotary type transplanting mechanism, was developed to make slits on the film. The motion of the reciprocating and oscillating knife was analyzed using video images. The knife cuts a slit on the film just before transplanting the seedlings through the slit. The analysis confirmed that this cutting mechanism, which could be made a part of rice transplanter, can work well with film laying and transplanting.
