# The Analysis of the Applications of Crop Seed Tape Sowing Technology and Equipment: A Review
## 1 Introduction  
Sowing is one of the important links of agricultural production. At present, there are mainly two ways of planting crops; one is direct seeding and the other is transplanting [1, 2, 3]. With the continuous development of agricultural technology, sowing methods are gradually showing a trend of diversification and refinement and agricultural production is developing towards refinement and intelligitization. People have gradually paid attention to precision seeding since it can reduce seed consumption and improve economic efficiency [4]. Due to the different sizes of seeds of different crops, it is difficult to design a planter that meets both large-size seeds and small-size seeds. Therefore, it is necessary to design a variety of planners for specific seeds [5, 6]. In addition, sowing stability (such as hole spacing, row spacing, number of seeds per hole, etc.) is a core issue and research showed that sowing speed has a great influence on sowing uniformity which mainly includes the hill space and the depth [7]. Seed tape souring (also called seed rope), as a niche kind of precision seeding technique, can meet the requirements above because of its technological characteristics. Seed tape souring can be independent of the seed size restrictions. It belongs to direct seeding and was first proposed by [PERSON] [8, 9, 10].  
Seed tape seeding technology was more common in the United States and Europe in the early days and it was later introduced by Asian countries. The seed tape technique was originally proposed for precision seeding of small seeds and it is mainly divided into two parts. One is seed tape manufacture and the other one is seed tape laying [11]. Put seeds and fertilizers in a tape carrier made of suitable material at the same time, and therefore one planter can be used to sow multiple crops. Seed tape sowing can also prevent seed waste caused by manual seeding or seeding by planters [12; 13]. In [PERSON]'s [14] research, the consumption of rapeseed sowed by seed tape was 60% less than ordinary sowing, and the production increased by 20%. Seed tape has been proven to have good economics and superiority in crop planting. In the experiment of green radish seed tape planting, compared with artificial sowing, it was obvious economic advantages which saved 490-530 CNY/667 m\({}^{2}\)[15]. [PERSON] et al. [16] used seed tape technology to cultivate Chinese herbal medicine _Saposhnikovia_, which reduced production costs by 2000 CHN/667 m\({}^{2}\). Compared with conventional transplanting, rice seed tape sowing saves water 4500 m\({}^{3}\)/hm\({}^{2}\) and reduces the amount of rice seed consumption by 17-33% [17; 18].  
At present, research on seed tape sowing technology mainly focuses on 3 aspects: the exploration of agronomic requirements for seed tape seeding, the research on seed tape manufacturing and the research on seed tape laying. The purpose of this review is to analyse and summarize the application research of crop seed tape sowing technology and equipment, including the agronomic technology, key technology and equipment of seed tape manufacturing and laying. The basic issues of seed tape which need further study were summarized and corresponding research suggestions were put forward. At the same time, the future development direction of rope planting technology was proposed.