Development of an Automatic Planting System for Baker's Garlic in a Sandy Field III. Influence of Seed Bulb Cluster Separator on the Growth of Baker's Garlic

摘要

A field plot experiment was carried out to evaluate the influence of the separator on Baker's garlic reproduction in one growth cycle in a sandy field at the Fukube experimental farm in Tottori prefecture, Japan, from September of 2002 to May of 2003.A comparative field experiment with 34 factorial (3 plots4 treatments) with four replications was employed based on the analysis of the prototypical separator associated with mechanical damage to the seed bulbs. The four treatments were allocated to three plots and samples within each treatment were randomly allocated and measured. Field emergence, growth vigor indexes in root system and leaf system and fresh weight per cluster were selected as evaluation parameters. Multiple comparisons of the averagevalues of each evaluation parameter among the four seed bulb treatments at the different growing phases were made. The Duncan's new multiple range tests indicated no significant differences among the four seed bulb treatments in field emergence and emergence speed, growth vigor and reproduction quality. The field plot experiment demonstrated that, although the visible damage to seed bulbs was unavoidable while the separator processed seed bulbs from clusters into single bulbs, the separator did not significantly result Baker's garlic reproducing ability in decline if they were planted according to the current technical regulations of Tottori production region, Japan.