A punch planter for corn was designed, prototyped, and evaluated for no-till conditions using a commercial seed metering unit. The seed meter was evaluated for seed spacing performance at the vertical position with 2.5 kPa of vacuum, as specifiedby the manufacturer, and at a 22° incline with 4.0 kPa of vacuum. The prototype punch planter was evaluated at a 22° incline with 4.0 kPa of vacuum. Only small changes occurred in the seed meter performance when speed varied from 1 to 3 m/s. Theprecision of seed spacing decreased approximately 6.0 when compared with the seed meter results. Field tests were conducted with several residue covers for testing the residue effect at a speed of 2.0 m/s. No significant difference was observed in theplanter performance. The multiples index (more than one seed in one space) increased up to 5.0 when compared to laboratory results. Emergence may have been affected by environmental conditions, but the precision du ring field tests was better than in the laboratory tests.
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