Evaluation of manual planters

In Brazil, a great number of small farms still use manual planters, especially in hilly and stony areas. These machines have not received significant design improvements since the start of their usage. Some of these planters available in the market have been tested for their seeding performance for corn. Each machine was set up to deliver two seeds each time. Only a few planters resulted in a low standard deviation and number of seeds close to the target. The performance of the seed meter was affected by the manufacturing quality of the machines.

manual planter; small farm; punch planter