Do-it-yourself manual potato planter. Potato planters: types and features of operation. Automatic potato planters

On the potato planter, it is imperative to install an operator's chair and footrests.

The potato planter works as follows:

• seed material is placed in the bunker, and additional bags are placed on top so as not to be constantly interrupted for refueling;
• the operator sits down in his place and starts planting potatoes, moving at a speed of no more than 1 km / h.

After planting material enters the soil, it must be covered with earth. It is for these purposes that the closing discs were invented, which, rotating, shift the top layer of soil and fall asleep root crops.

A do-it-yourself unit for planting potatoes is not only a significant cost savings, but also an unit made just for you, as well as more reliable than a purchased one, because who will do bad things for themselves. In addition, this is a good opportunity to feel like a real Kulibin, making your own changes to already finished projects.

The use of a potato planter greatly simplifies the work of a gardener. The problem is that such a device is used only once a year, and the cost of factory models is significant. The only way out for zealous owners is to make a potato planter with their own hands from improvised materials or decommissioned equipment. We will consider drawings, drawings and diagrams of the three most popular types: manual, for a walk-behind tractor and a mini-tractor.

Manual potato planter

The scope of the manual potato planter is small summer cottages, since some physical effort is still required. The easiest circuit to make.

Manufacturing process

In the drawing, the design is represented by a metal pipe handle, on which the tip-base and a 20-cm limiter bar are fixed by welding. The latter also serves as an emphasis for the legs. The point can not be collected separately, but cut at an angle to get a pointed edge that easily enters the soil.

The container for tubers is fixed on the outer side of the tip with two bolts, then a container and a pusher-rod are attached to it. At the upper end of the device, a holder is formed with a movable handle and a clutch that will control the pusher and bracket, as a result, the tuber will fall exactly into the landing site.

How to use

Work algorithm:

1. Fill the container with planting material.
2. Install the device at the desired location on the soil surface.
3. Press the stop bar with your foot and dig the blades into the soil.
4. By tilting the handle of the tool towards and away from you, create free space for the tuber, which falls into the right place by pressing the handle of the device. Next, remove the tip of the potato planter from the ground.
5. Repeat the process again for a new tuber.

Potato planter for walk-behind tractor

Automated potato planters use different types of designs. They are:

• Spoon. Peculiar spoons are attached to a belt or conveyor-type belt, which forms a wide row-spacing and, simultaneously with planting potatoes, can be used to treat the soil with fertilizers or other means. Thanks to spoons, there are practically no passes in planting tubers.
• Belt. Planting of tubers occurs with the help of belts with recesses. The main advantage of the flat-belt design is the careful handling of the club ones, which, even when sprouted, are practically not damaged.
• Piercing structures are used for sowing chopped potatoes.

Manufacturing process

The principle of operation of the mechanism is simple. The device consists of the following parts:

1 - conveyor for feeding potatoes. In this situation, it is a chain with spoon-like grippers placed at an equal distance from each other. This distance determines the landing interval. The tubers come from the hopper (5) and fall into the furrow. The furrow is made with a plow-bipod (4). The whole structure is mounted on a frame (3), on which an additional hopper (2) can be installed, suitable for fertilizing. The frame is connected to the walk-behind tractor using a special device. The conveyor itself is rotated by drive wheels (6) equipped with special devices for coupling with the ground. The tubers are covered with soil and hilled with a pair of discs (7).

For the manufacture of a two-row device, you need a channel (square pipe) number 8. To connect the structural elements, you will need a steel corner and bolts.

Rubber wheels for a potato planter are not the best option due to possible slippage. It is advisable to use metal wheels from a bent metal profile with a width of at least 15 mm, on which special transverse strips are welded for adhesion to the ground. Spokes can be made from any steel strips or pipes. The sleeve is connected to the drive axle by welding.

Sprockets and chains from a conveyor or combine are required (a chain from a bicycle or motorcycle will not work - it will break). Spoon-shaped grips can be welded from a steel bar and fixed by welding to the chain links.

Plow bipods are made from a corner and a steel strip, and it is better to take ready-made discs for hilling - from decommissioned agricultural machinery. In the whole design of the potato planter, it is the disks that are a very important element: it is thanks to them that the potato bed turns out to be neat, and the tubers do not sink more than necessary.

Homemade potato planter for a mini tractor

Single-row and double-row potato planters work with mini-tractors with a capacity of 18-25 horsepower. In the classic version, a potato planter for a tractor consists of a hopper for tubers, a frame, a bipod-plow for digging a furrow, conveyor-type fasteners for capturing tubers and discs for closing the furrow.

Work algorithm:

1. The bipod-plow forms a furrow.
2. The conveyor guides take the tuber out of the bunker and throw it into the furrow.
3. The discs fill up the grooves.

Depending on the power of the existing tractor and the amount of planting work, the potato planter can be made both single-row and double-row.

Manufacturing

They start by installing a frame made from a size 8 channel. Spars with crossbars are attached to the frame to form a frame.

Then, in front of the frame, fasteners are installed by welding for connection with a mini-tractor and metal elements are welded to the side members for fastening the bunker. At the bottom of the frame, a plow opener and a wheel axle are mounted.

The potato hopper is cut out of plywood and connected with metal corners. To prevent damage to the potatoes, it is advisable to upholster the hopper with soft material.

In principle, any container can become a bunker, for example, a tank from an old washing machine.

The wheels of the potato planter must be wide so as not to create excessive load on the soil. Some country craftsmen advise making wheels from old gas cylinders, cut across, and with metal strips welded to the outside for better grip on the soil.

A metal pipe with a diameter of 10 cm or more, cut in height, acts as a seeder.

For a potato planter paired with a mini-tractor, it is advisable to provide for the place of an assistant who will control the process.

Trailed two-row potato planter

Gardeners are well aware that the main thing when planting potatoes is the uniform supply of tubers to a certain depth with even soil incorporation. Rows, seeding depth and incorporation are easily managed with the simplest mechanical tools - furrow cutters, seed tubes and closing discs.

The number one node in any planter or seeder is the metering unit, which ensures uniform (according to the norm) planting of tubers or seeds. Of course, an amateur gardener cannot afford to make a complex mechanism. And inventive potato growers found a way out.

The principle of homemade work is this. Several sacks of potatoes are poured into the bunker, and two or three more sacks are put in stock on the trunk. The seeder sits down at the workplace, the driver engages the first gear, and the mini-tractor begins to move slowly. The furrow cutters, adjusted to a predetermined depth, form two even furrows, on the bottom of which the sower rhythmically throws potato tubers through the seed tubes.

The interval between the tubers depends on the speed of the mini-tractor, which should not exceed 1 km / h, and the rhythm of the sower's hands. The necessary skills appear quickly, and soon the sower fully enters the rhythm of work. The work, of course, requires a certain skill, because you need to have time to simultaneously take a potato with both hands, bring it to the seed tubes, and throw them there. And so many times, in the same rhythm, with the same amplitude of movement, otherwise the distances between the tubers in the row will not be the same.

After the tubers have fallen into the furrow, they must be covered with earth. To do this, the planter is provided with closing discs. Since they are located at an angle to the furrows, then, rotating from friction against the soil, they shift part of the earth towards the furrows and close them.
Closing discs are designed in such a way that, by loosening the ladders pressing the racks to the supports, it is possible to change not only the degree of penetration of the discs into the soil, but also the angle of their attack by turning the racks around their own axis.

There is a third adjustment - by moving the disks in one direction or another along the axes on which they rotate. To do this, adjusting bushings are used (four per axle): by rearranging the bushings, you can change the width of the discs. By combining the three adjustments mentioned above, depending on the soil structure, almost perfect working of the closing discs can be achieved.

So, the tubers are laid at a given depth, at the required distance from each other, evenly littered with soil. However, another operation is required. It is necessary to remove the traces left by the wheels of the tractor and the potato planter. They are removed by rippers - cultivator paws on racks. The penetration of the paws into the soil is also regulated - by vertical movement of the racks and fixing them in the clips with through fingers.

In addition to “sweeping” the tracks, the rippers perform another function - they serve as markers that help the tractor driver navigate the next (reverse) pass of the mini-tractor. It should be borne in mind that the distance between adjacent rows in the aisles may differ from 600 mm upwards, but not less, otherwise, during subsequent inter-row processing, potato bushes in these rows will be cut by the working bodies of the cultivator or hiller.

Planter design.

The frame, as in any machine, serves as the basis to which all other nodes are attached. For the most part, it is welded from sections of channel No. 8. The frame is simple: two longitudinal spars connected by three crossbars.

In front, an arch with a fork for fastening to the central link and two pins for fastening to the lower links of the tractor hitch are welded to the spars; on the side, on both sides, - lamellar supports of seed tubes and racks of closing discs; behind - three boards of a flooring of a luggage carrier.

The frame is reinforced with two inclined braces of strip steel, stretching from the arch to the middle crossbar, two trapezoidal overlays on the arch and many gussets made of 4 mm thick steel sheet in the form of right-angled triangles, the length of the legs of which varies from 40 to 80 mm.

In addition, seatpost supports made of a 50x50x5 mm angle and footboards made of 6 mm steel sheet are attached to the spars, the location of which on the frame is determined depending on the height of the sower. According to his height, the height of the legs of the seatpost is also selected. The seat itself is made from a corner 50x50x5 mm (frame), boards (bottom) and foam rubber covered with leatherette (cushion).

A plate bracket is welded to the inclined braces, to which a hopper of planting material (potato tubers) with a volume of 0.17 m3 is attached with two M10 bolts. The bunker is made of 12 mm thick plywood sheets, covered with drying oil and then with waterproof paint. From below, the wheel axle and the rippers holder are bolted to the frame.

Wheel axle. Its base is a thick-walled pipe, at the ends of which trunnions, or spikes, machined on a lathe, are inserted. The spikes are held in the pipe by steel pins that are pressed into radial holes drilled after assembly. The pin heads are welded on.

The wheels are welded from several sheet parts. Their manufacture is a rather laborious process, but it is justified by the fact that the wide cylindrical surface of the wheels compacts the soil less. However, it is also possible to use suitable rubber wheels from agricultural machines.

Hubs are welded to the wheels, each of which rotates on two bearings 205 mounted on spikes. Bearings are protected from contamination by caps and felt pads. The axle is attached to the frame of the potato planter with four M16 bolts using two clamps made of steel sheet.

The rippers holder, on the other hand, is quite simple. This is a rod with clips at the ends, into which the racks of cultivator paws are inserted. The square rod is welded from two segments of the corner 50x50x5 mm (the resulting profile resists twisting - its main workload - much better than the usual "square", although the latter is more technologically advanced), and clips - from pieces of sheet steel 6 mm thick. The dimensions of the clips are selected so that the racks of the cultivator paws enter them with millimeter gaps.

Do not require special costs and seeders. Each of them consists of a seed tube - a pipe with a diameter of 100 mm, from below to which a furrow cutter made of 6 mm sheet steel is welded. The wall thickness of the pipe is 3 mm (less than it is impossible - the thin-walled one will bend under the pressure of the resisting soil). The degree of deepening of the furrow cutters with loose ladders is regulated by the vertical movement of the seed ducts along their supports on the frame.

After adjustment, the stepladders should be tightened very tightly, otherwise the seed ducts will turn around their axis - the loads on the furrow cutters are still significant.

Closing discs are taken from the SO-4.2 seeder. They require a little alteration, since they have only one 203 bearing each. You just need to grind the hub of each disc to the desired size and press the housing into it, which is already designed for two bearings. The new bearings have the same seat dimensions as the old ones (maybe a little wider), but are closed on one side with a seal, which is why they are preferred. By installing the bearings with seals outward, we get a unit that is completely isolated from dirt and dust.

Such a potato planter is a rather massive machine. A mini-tractor with an engine, say, from an Ant scooter and weighing 300-500 kg will be hard to pull, but a larger and more powerful tractor is quite capable. For example, a mini-tractor equipped with a UD-2 engine, together with a driver, ballast weights on the rear wheels and a front counterweight, weighs about 850 kg, and it works together with a planter without any effort. And the counterweight is necessary so that during the lifting of the planter the tractor remains stable and does not “turn up its nose”.

Wheelbarrow-potato planter.

A simpler version of a potato planter is a one-wheeled wheelbarrow, but with an unusual wheel (Fig. 18). It consists of three parts - two outer metal discs with lugs bent to the outside and a middle part sawn from a board 60 mm thick. Four semicircular grooves are selected along the periphery of the wooden disk. The dimensions of each of them should be such that the largest of the potatoes prepared for planting can fit in it.

A bunker is placed above the landing wheel. It can be made from plywood about 10 mm thick, or even a plastic bucket can be adapted by cutting a hole in its bottom to match the cavities in the wheel.

The front part of the wheel is covered with a shield that prevents the tuber from falling out of the wheel cavity before it is compatible with the ground. So that the planting material is not damaged, the bottom of the hopper is laid with a rubber band.

Potato planting marker.

The potato planting marker (fig. 19) is useful for those who plant unsprouted potatoes in the furrows prepared by the plow. Its use will greatly facilitate the work of the planter, help to maintain the required distance and depth of planting seeds.

There is no particular difficulty in the manufacture of the device. The most important thing is to choose lightweight and durable materials. For a curved marker stick, you can use a duralumin stick (you can use a ski stick), and as a conductor tube, a polyethylene tube with a diameter of 8-10 cm, a length of 1-1.5 m.

Production order:

1. Take a duralumin (or other light) tube, light fittings 2 m 10 cm long.
2. Bend it at the bottom at a distance of 60-70 cm.
3. Drill holes for mounting the tube.
4. Cut off the polyethylene tube.
5. Attach the tube to the stick with bolts and nuts.
6. Apply divisions to the bent end (marker).
7. Put divisions in height.
8. Install the limiter (bolt with wing nut).

Hand shovel-harvester.

With the help of this simple device, you can, without getting tired, plant potatoes at an equal distance and sow grains or seeds of peas, beans, corn, sunflowers.

In order to plant, for example, potatoes, you need to dig a hole with a shovel, bend down, lower the tuber and cover it with earth. The proposed device allows you to combine all these operations.

Two triangular blades are welded to two tubular handles from below, which, when closed, form something like a beak. When the blades are closed, you can, by pressing on them like a shovel, deepen them into the ground, and then lower the tuber into the “beak”.

The next stage is the convergence of the handles. At the same time, the blades open, the tuber falls between them and falls asleep with crumbling earth when the device is pulled out of the soil (Fig. 20).

The device of a shovel-harvester. The two handles are interconnected in such a way that they can approach each other. One of the handles has a complex shape - it is an elbow welded from three pieces of pipe and closed with a cork. The upper segment serves as a kind of bunker for the tuber.

A dosing-sowing device is placed in the horizontal section of the pipe - a wooden piston that moves inside the pipe. As the handles approach, the piston moves, the hole drilled in it being positioned just above the down tube. The tuber, which is at this moment in the hole, falls through the lower pipe into the ground. This happens exactly when the blades are deepened.

When the handles diverge, the piston returns to its old place under the action of the spring, the next tuber is in its receiving hole. Now you need to move the device to the desired distance - and everything repeats from the beginning.

To maintain an equal distance between the nests during planting, a movable wooden cone, mounted on a threaded rod, is used. The distance from the cone to the center of the blades corresponds to the landing intervals. Deepening the blades into the ground, the handles bend forward slightly. The cone makes a mark on the soil, into which the blades will enter in the next step. Adjust this distance by moving the cone.

Potato sorter.

Before storing potatoes for winter storage, thrifty owners will certainly sort them, separating small tubers for livestock or processing them into starch. The potato sorter allows mechanizing this work.

This device consists of two paired rod cylinders, a loading hopper, pitched rod grates for various potato fractions, a manual drive and a frame. The basis of each cylinder are wooden hoops with crosses. The hoops consist of individual elements connected to each other and to the cross with spikes and steel spacers. To prevent mechanical damage to potatoes during sorting, the crosses are made rounded.

On the inside of the hoops, wooden rods with a diameter of 15-16 mm and a length of 650-700 mm are attached. They are made of durable wood and attached to the hoops with a flexible metal tape and screws. Notches are made in the hoops for laying the bars.

The distance between the cylinder bars for potatoes of a small fraction is made approximately 30-35 mm, and for the middle one - 40-50 mm. Internal diameter - not less than 700 mm.

The cylinders are bolted together. Depending on the size of the cylinders, the appropriate frame sizes are selected. The frame can be made of wooden bars with a section of 60x60 mm or angle steel 35x35x4 mm. During operation, the cylinders are set at an angle of 8-10°.

The potato sorter separates the tubers into three fractions: small, medium and large. Small and medium potatoes are sequentially sifted through the first and second rod cylinders, and large ones are fed to the outlet. Earth and small impurities are separated through pitched gratings.