WILLIAMES VOLCANO NEEDLE SEED DRUM
Odd-shaped seed such as marigold, lettuce and uncoated tomato are usually seeded more accurately with a Needle Seed Drum. These drums are usually utilized as part of the Williames Seeding Line.
The Williames Needle Seed Drum picks up the seed on the tips of the needles. This enables air from the singulator bars to bounce off the drum and come in from underneath the seed. Singulator air, therefore, comes in from the top, sides (when there are extra singulator bars fitted), and from underneath, improving the precision by which doubles and multiple seeds can be removed.
Below, the video shows the Williames Volcano Needle seeder seeding raw tomato seed with 100% accuracy. In this instance, the seeder ended up seeding 1800 450-cell trays trays per hour. This ultimately equalled an impressive 810,000 seeded cells per hour.
So, how does the Williames Needle Seeder work?
- The seed drum picks up the seed from the hopper.
- The vacuum holds the seed, like a conventional needle seeder
- The singulator bars allow air to flow in multiple directions. This includes the needle’s underside which enhances singulation. Up to 5 bars are available
- The Tray catches seeds blown off by the singulator bars.
- The speed of seed transfer from seed drum to seedling tray is consistent, released with controlled air pressure. This results in seed placement precision.
- The high-pressure air cleans all the holes every rotation to maintain premium performance before picking up the seed
- There is plenty of room to singulate due to the large diameter of the drum
Why sow seeds automatically over manually?
The question above is reasonable. After all, mechanical seeding machines are often a lot of money. Therefore, why should you choose automatic seeding over its traditional manual counterpart?
- Uniformity: The big advantage automatic seeding has over manual seeding is consistency. Automatic mechanical seeding provides uniformity, which by nature means better survival and growing quality.
- Money-saving: It also saves you a great amount of money by avoiding excess seeds. This means no wasted resources on your part. Often, in manual planting, seeds are prone to wastage due to miscalculation and other human errors. Automatic seeding, on the other hand, bypasses this.
- The time factor: Time is money, it is said. And when you’ve worked in large-scale horticultural industries, who can argue? It is for this reason that automatic seeding is the future. Being able to sow thousands of trays (and in a consistent, uniform way as mentioned above, no less!) far outweighs the costs of hiring manual labour. The machines are immune to exhaustion, programmed to avoid placement errors and don’t need a lunch-break.
- Flexibility: It’s common for nurseries to grow various types of produce and, as such, they require machines that can sow multiple types of seed. If you are one of those nurseries, the Williames Seeders are your choice du jour. Our seeders are equipped with seed drums that are easily interchangeable, bearing different hole patterns that accommodate various types of seed.