How to Operate a Rice Transplanter More Safely? These Are the Things You Must Know

A rice transplanter is a type of agricultural machinery that plants rice seedlings into paddy fields, and it is surely familiar to everyone. In the past, backbreaking manual labor was required to produce tasty grain, but today we have taken the road to prosperity with machinery. How to operate a rice transplanter more safely? When using a rice transplanter, you must follow the standard technical requirements in the manual. This is very important, as it is beneficial to the future use of the machine and helps extend its service life.

1. Before the busy spring rice-planting season arrives, the transplanter operator must undergo comprehensive technical training, so that the operator fully understands the machine's overall structure, technical performance, working principles and technical procedures, and masters the technical operating essentials of the transplanter as well as the safety precautions to note.

2. When the operator starts the transplanter engine, be sure to put the main clutch lever and the planting clutch lever in the disengaged position to cut off power; when pulling the starting handle, first give it a few trial pulls, then place the starter rope in the low position, push it inward firmly, and pull to prevent hand injuries.

3. When adjusting the transplanter's planting spacing and seedling-picking amount according to the local rice-planting agronomic requirements, you must shut down the engine and stop the work; to adjust or clear mud and weeds from the seedling gate, and to separate the seedling needles, you must disengage the main clutch.

4. During transplanter operation, the floating plate must be kept clean. Prevent seedling trays and other debris from wrapping around the drive shaft and rotating universal joint moving parts, which would affect the transplanter's work; the operator must not use their feet to clear mud and weeds between the traveling ground wheels and the traveling transmission case.

5. Before entering the paddy field for work, carefully check and tighten the bolts of each part of the seedling box support back; machine vibration during work can cause nuts to fall off and damage the upper slideway, making it unable to run. Check frequently after finishing work each day to maintain good technical condition.

6. When the transplanter turns around during planting, reduce the throttle and promptly disengage the planting clutch to prevent damage to the drive universal joint parts.

7. When the transplanter operator refills and arranges seedlings, stop the seedling-picking needles from working; when placing seedlings, the operator should stay away from the seedling gate to prevent hands from being pricked by the seedling-picking needles.

8. When the transplanter moves and crosses field ridges, be careful not to bump the seedling gate; when crossing ditches and waterways, lay down wooden boards, reduce the throttle, hold the handle firmly and pass slowly.

9. If during planting work a machine drive wheel gets stuck and cannot move forward, stop the machine, use a wooden stick to lift the traveling wheel, place a wooden board under the traveling wheel, start the machine, hold the handle firmly and let the machine move itself out.

10. During planting in the paddy field, the operator should constantly observe whether the transplanter has missed plantings or damaged seedlings; if missed plantings and damaged seedlings are serious, stop the machine and check whether the seedling needles are deformed or stuck by small stones in the seedling nutrient soil. If the needles are deformed, repair or replace them; if there are small stones in the gaps of the seedling needles, remove them with a flat-head screwdriver, then restart the machine to continue planting.

Related knowledge: the development history of the rice transplanter

China's traditional rice-planting tools, the yangma (rice-horse) (Figure 1) and the shifu, have a history of use of nearly a thousand years. Su Shi of the Song Dynasty once wrote the “Song of the Rice Horse”, describing the scene of Hubei farmers using the rice horse. The shifu could replace manual seedling separation and comb the seedlings into the mud for transplanting; until the 1950s, it was still in use in some areas. Research and development of China's rice transplanter began in 1953. In 1956, inspired by the shifu seedling-separation method, the principle of picking up seedlings in successive groups in separate cells and planting them directly was proposed for the first time, achieving a breakthrough in the development of the rice transplanter and producing the first-generation prototype for transplanting pulled rice seedlings. By 1960, the number of human-powered and animal-powered transplanters recommended for production use in various places had reached 21 types. In 1967, the first self-propelled motorized transplanter, the “Dongfeng-2S” model, passed appraisal and was put into production, capable of planting 15 to 20 mu per day.

Japan published its first rice transplanter patent in 1898; Italy began researching rice transplanters for pulled seedlings in 1915, and by the 1950s there were tractor-matched commercial products on sale, but none were widely adopted because of their complex structure, high cost and the need for much auxiliary labor during operation. In the 1960s, Japan developed planting technology for small seedlings with soil and the corresponding rice transplanter. After 1966, factory-based rice seedling-raising equipment was successfully developed, promoting the rapid development of rice-transplanting mechanization. It has a body including front wheels and rear wheels, a power unit and a planting unit arranged on the body, and a body cover integrally formed with the main platform and auxiliary platform of the body. It also has a vehicle chassis that supports the weight load of the driver's seat near one vertex of the vehicle body and is shaped like a convex triangle in side view.

The development of transplanters has advanced from the earliest human-pushed forward-moving type to the riding type, and hydraulic devices as well as four-wheel drive (4WD) have been developed, along with continuously variable transmissions, so rice-transplanting work has thereby developed into fast, convenient mechanized operation.