Design and experiment on precision fertilization control system of rice transplanter side deep fertilization device based on the operation speed

<p><strong>Background: </strong>Fertilization is an important process of rice production, which directly affects the yield of crops. The mechanization level of rice fertilization is very low at present in China, and the artificial fertilization requires a large amount of fertilizer which caused the uneven distribution. The rice side deep fertilizing is an ideal way of fertilization, the way apply the granular fertilizer to the side of rice seedlings with a certain depth, the way can reduce nitrogen fertilizer amount of 20%-30% compared with the traditional fertilizing operation. The side deep fertilizing technique has been applied by the side deep fertilization device installed in the rice transplanter. The working way of the most existing equipment is the mechanical transmission mode and complex in installation, it can't achieve precision control of the fertilization amount.</p> <p><strong>Methods: </strong>The study design the precision fertilization control system in order to achieve the requirements of the side deep precision fertilization operation. Its working principle is motor driven fertilizer and fertilization amount was adjusted according to the change of the rice transplanter's speed obtained by GPS. The fertilizing control software was designed use eMbeddedVisuaiC++ integrated development environment</p> <p><strong>Results: </strong>The study has tested the fertilization working performance of the control system in static condition. The coefficient of variation of each row fertilizer quantity is 2.3%, 2.1%, 2.2%, 1.8% in the speed of 10 r/min, 20 r/min, 30 r/min, 40 r/min.</p> <p><strong>Discussions: </strong>The result shows fertilizer amount consistency is good and relatively constant, fertilizer variation coefficient of each row is small at the same speed, average fertilizer amount increases linearly with the increasing of the rotation speed.</p> <p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>The control system was developed for side deep precision fertilization operation and it can meet the requirements of precision fertilization of the side deep fertilization device.