Behavioral research of seeds in electrostatic field
According to the «National Program on agricultural development and market regulation of agricultural products, raw materials and food for 2013-2020», it is necessary to increase field vegetables production to 5.2 million tons, and greenhouse vegetables to 1.4 million tons. In addition, the program issues the challenge of providing agricultural industry with domestic seeds of main cultivated crops in the amount of not less than 75%. Nowadays an urgent issue is to improve the seedbed preparation of vegetable seeds. The purpose of the research is to modernize the facility for electrotechnological pre-seeding treatment of gourd family seeds. The research task is to study the behavior of seed particles in the interelectrode interval of the electrostatic belt trier, in particular the study of temporal characteristics of charge, orientation, and seeds bursting in an electrostatic field. The studies were conducted on experimental stand using film camera Panasonic Lumix GX 7. For uniform illumination two types of lighting were used: diffused shadowless lighting directed at the investigated facility and contoured lighting directed at shelves with the seed mass. Experimental results have accurately determined the time during which the seeds acquire a charge required for its orientation, movement and disruption from the shelf. The conducted experiments show that orientation tension is a typical value characteristic of each seed and can be used when assessing their quality. The obtained time dependences are instrumental in further development of the proposed facility for the purpose of sorting seeds automation.