# Research Progress and Future Prospects of Key Technologies for Dryland Transplanters
## 4 Questions and Suggestions
### Suggestions  
(1) Strengthening Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Establish a joint R&D team of agricultural machinery and agronomy experts. In the initial design phase of transplanters, fully consider the biological and physical characteristics of crops, as well as agronomic factors such as planting density, row spacing, and plant spacing, to promote deep integration of machinery design with agronomic requirements. Conduct extensive adaptability trials, including numerous field transplanting experiments in diverse regions and planting environments, followed by yield analysis. Based on trial results, make targeted adjustments and optimizations to transplanters to ensure they achieve optimal performance in actual operations. (2) Establish Standards for Transplanting Processes: Land preparation conditions vary significantly across regions, with poor land conditions in some areas limiting the application of transplanting machinery. In the future, the first priority should be to unify land leveling requirements and crop planting specifications based on the actual development of different crop industries. Secondly, relevant agricultural departments or industry associations should lead the organization of experts and technicians to formulate scientific, reasonable, and unified seedling raising and planting standards. These standards should be based on the growth requirements of different crops, specifying seedling quality indicators and transplanting machine parameter ranges to provide a clear basis for seedling production and transplanting operations. Unified technical standards for soil preparation, substrate mixture ratio, bowl forming dimensions, plug tray specifications, and factory-based seedling cultivation will facilitate the automated operation of transplanters, thereby enhancing operation quality and production efficiency. The ultimate goal is to achieve integrated development of land preparation, bowl forming, seedling raising, seedling extraction, and planting. (3) Enhancing Transplanter Adaptability: Strengthen research on transplanter adaptability under diverse terrains and soil conditions. Apply advanced design concepts and technical methodologies to optimize the chassis structure, traveling system, and working components of transplanters. Develop transplanters equipped with all-terrain intelligent chassis and adaptive soil operation systems to enhance their passability and stability in complex environments. Adopt a modular design approach to achieve serialization and standardization of non-seedling-extraction core mechanisms. This allows for selecting suitable seedling picking mechanisms based on different soil conditions and crops, enabling the planting of various plug seedlings. Such an approach improves the stability and adaptability of automatic transplanters, facilitates maintenance, and suits large-scale production requirements. While enhancing transplanter adaptability, attention should also be paid to cost control, and a balance should be struck between adaptability improvement and cost management. (4) Accelerating Intelligentization and Digitalization of Transplanters: Install intelligent monitoring systems on transplanters to real-time monitor plug seedling's status, soil conditions, and transplanter operation parameters via visual detection technology, soil moisture sensors, planting depth sensors, etc. Monitoring data is uploaded to the control terminal through a data transmission module, enabling operators to adjust the operation status in a timely manner and ensure operation quality. Meanwhile, vigorously promote the application of automation technologies. Introduce advanced automatic control technologies, such as autonomous driving systems, to achieve functions like automatic navigation, seedling extraction, and planting for transplanters. This approach reduces manual operation steps, enhances work efficiency and accuracy, alleviates labor intensity, improves operation quality, and boosts resource utilization.