## 4 Discussion  
1. In traditional sweet potato transplanting operations, manual labor is required to assist the transplanter by individually placing seedlings into specific feeding or delivery mechanisms [27; 28], after which the planting mechanism plants the seedlings into the soil. The operational efficiency is limited by manual labor. The seedling belt feeding scheme proposed in this paper not only enables automated and efficient transplanting but also reduces labor input. Meanwhile, the seedling belt feeding scheme is not only applicable to the transplanting of bare sweet potato seedlings but also offers significant reference value for other similar crops such as codonopsis pilosula and rapeseed. In the field of automated sweet potato transplanting, seedling belt feeding has great development potential and represents the future direction for bare seedling transplanting.
2. This study, through single-factor and orthogonal experiments, identified the key factors influencing the heat sealing effectiveness of seedling belts and their optimal parameter combinations. These parameters not only significantly enhanced the stability of the peel strength of the seedling tapes but also provided a critical theoretical basis for the design of automated seedling tape production equipment. However, the current experiments were primarily conducted using LDPE film, without considering the heat sealing performance variations when involving multilayer composite materials or films containing impurities. Future research could expand to more types of film materials and under complex environmental conditions (such as high humidity and temperature fluctuations) to further validate the applicability of the heat sealing parameters, thereby enhancing the technology's universality and suitability.
3. The results of this experiment met expectations; based on calculations of seedling belt bonding point strength, the target peeling strength was determined to be 13.2 N. At this strength, the connection at the bonding points can effectively secure the sweet potato seedlings and ensure that the bonding points do not damage the film during peeling. However, in this experiment, the temperature monitoring location was inside the main body of the heat sealing tool, and the temperature sensor displayed the temperature of the main body, not directly monitoring the contact surface of the hot spot. Therefore, there is a certain deviation between the displayed temperature and the temperature at the contact surface of the hot spot. In future research, it is recommended to directly monitor the temperature at the contact surface to reduce experimental errors.
4. This study primarily examines the impact of heat sealing parameters on seedling tape performance from the perspectives of materials science and mechanical engineering, while the practical application of sweet potato seedling tapes spans multiple fields such as crop biology and agronomy. For instance, whether the rhizome structure of sweet potato seedlings is damaged due to excessive heat sealing strength and how the heat sealing effectiveness of film materials varies under different seasonal climatic conditions both necessitate interdisciplinary collaborative research. Furthermore, researching the specific needs of other similar bare-root crops in relation to seedling belt materials and heat sealing processes will provide more comprehensive guidance for the development of agricultural mechanization equipment.