THEORETICAL DETERMINATION OF DESIGN PARAMETERS OF A COULTER WITH A SPRING-TYPE ELASTIC MECHANISM FOR EMBEDDING SEED MATERIAL WITH SOIL

Growing onion from onion sets is the most common and most widely used way. According to the research results, the onion yield is known to be greatly influenced by the stem-down position of the onion set in the furrow and the uniform distribution of onion bulbs along the row. From the carried out patent-technical search and the analysis of the existing furrow-spreading working elements of the sowing and planting machines, no clear evidence has been found about keeping the planting material in its initial position when embedding it in the soil. In this connection, a coulter of the planting machine has been developed to provide both uniform downward embedding of onion sets to the depth of different soil types and its even distribution along the furrow, as a result of adjusting the distance between the coulter body and the embedding elements during the operation. It is noted that the installation of elements for embedding onion sets depends on the planting machine speed and the horizontal component of the onion dropping speed, as well as the dropping height. Expressions have been obtained to determine the width of the embedding element surface, the distance between the coulter body and the embedding elements, as well as the working surface area of the embedding element.