Development of New Seeding System for Low-cost Sugar Beet Production

摘要

Recently, lower cost production of sugar beet and soybeans is required in Hokkaido, Japan. This requirement will increase the self-sustenance rate of food in Japan and allows the Japanese agricultural products to compete against the cheaper products imported from abroad. A new seeder for the no-tillage crop cultivation was developed and tested for the sugar beet and soybean seeding in this project. This seeder was also set for narrow-row distance cultivation of 45 cm. The conventional row distance was 66 cm for both sugar beet and soybeans in Hokkaido. The seeding performance was tested at the fields classified as gray lowland soil and Kuroboku soil (black soil, Andosol) in Tokachi region of Hokkaido. The developed seeder could perform constant furrow depth with soil firmness conditions of more than 1 MPa. The crop growing status was stable. The poor furrow shape made by the seeder neither affected the seeding emergence nor prevented normal crop growth. However, the lower plant population and amount of yield were expected from the sugar beet, because the distances between the dropped seeds were not constant. Investigation of the no-tilling seed drop performance, based on the soil conditions of the previous crop residues, showed no significant difference in preparing the seed bed compared to the seeding performance by conventional tillage. The precise seeding performance for certain number of seed drops, and the constant seed distance should be evaluated in the next step.