# The Analysis of the Applications of Crop Seed Tape Sowing Technology and Equipment: A Review
## 3 Research on Key Technology and Equipment for Seed Tape Manufacture
### Key Technology of Seed Tape Manufacture
#### 3.2.1 The Seed Wrapping Technology and Equipment
When it was working, the puncher first punches the middle layer of paper tape with even small holes, and the other paper tape is tightly attached to the bottom of the paper tape through the conveying and pressing mechanism. The small hole forms a concave small hole, and the seeding mechanism puts the seeds into the opened small hole. The third paper tape was tightly covered on the hole paper tape through another set of conveying and pressing mechanisms. The nail piercing device of the book implement fixes the three layers of paper tape. In terms of seed tape twisting production, [PERSON] et al. [58] developed a seed rope twisting machine, which can weave rice seeds, fertilizers, and herbicides into seed ropes according to agronomic requirements. The linear velocity and the number of twisting per unit length of the rope were analysed for the winding mechanism of the seed tape twisting machine. Field trials show that the institution the seed rope produced can meet the production requirements [59]. However, there are still problems such as poor hill spacing control, low production efficiency and seed rope winding forming. For this reason, [PERSON] and [PERSON] [60; 61] of Nanjing Agricultural University developed a new generation of seed rope  
Figure 2: Three different types of seed tapes. (**a**) Folding type seed tape ([[https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/3d/48/6b/a92c639077c3f/US20110271888A1.pdf](https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/3d/48/6b/a92c639077c3f/US20110271888A1.pdf)]([https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/3d/48/6b/a92c639077c3f/US20110271888A1.pdf](https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/3d/48/6b/a92c639077c3f/US20110271888A1.pdf)) (accessed on 21 November 2021)) [46] (**b**) Device for making water-soluble seed tapes [47]; (**c**) Seed tape designed by [PERSON] ([[https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/6c/5b/13/f2](https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/6c/5b/13/f2) be258f5 ff6]([https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/6c/5b/13/f2](https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/6c/5b/13/f2) be258f5 ff6) 5f/WO2007065436A1.pdf (accessed on 21 November 2021)) [48]. 1. Binder 2. Seed 3. Dividing line 4. Rear containment material 5. Front containment material. winding machine. The test results show that it can meet the agronomic needs, and there is no significant difference compared with the local traditional machine transplanting or manual transplanting. In 2011, [PERSON] [62] from Hunan Agricultural University designed a kind of seed rope winding machine with straw rope as the carrier. This machine can reuse the straw harvested by mechanical or manual harvesting. It can prepare 10 seed ropes at the same time each time. It can produce 10 km of seed tape per hour, while the uniformity of chemical fertilizers and herbicides is 95%. The seed loss rate is only 3%. However, due to the large number of working parts and the complicated structure, the machine is equipped with five motors, which has high energy consumption. The size of the seed rope is relatively large, and the seed rope may float off the soil when sowing. Therefore, this technology has certain limitations. In 2012, [PERSON] and [PERSON] [63] of Qingdao Agricultural University designed a set of precision seeding equipment based on the seed tape mode that can be applied to a variety of crops. The equipment includes a seed rope weaving machine and a seed rope planter. Taking carrot as the experimental object, the operation indexes are as follows: the missed seeding rate 2.7%, the qualified rate of plant spacing 96.3%, the qualified rate of seeding depth 92.3% and the germination rate 95.7%. Field experiments indicated that this set of equipment can meet agricultural requirements. [PERSON] and [PERSON] et al. [64; 65; 27; 66; 67; 68] designed a new type of rice seed tape machine with an optimized automatic control system (Figure 4), which greatly produced the production efficiency of seed tape. [PERSON] also concluded that the most appropriate twisting number was 47 per meter.