[Farm Machinery of the Week] HADA Co., Ltd.’s fully automatic pepper and cabbage transplanter… automating the entire process from seedling extraction to soil pressing

South Korean agriculture is facing an unprecedented crisis due to unpredictable heat waves and heavy rain caused by climate change, along with a rapid decline in the rural population. In particular, according to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Rural Development Administration, the mechanization rate of domestic rice farming has reached 98%, effectively achieving full mechanization, while the mechanization rate of upland farming remains in the 60% range, leaving it still highly dependent on labor.
 
Amid this situation, the Rural Development Administration and HADA Co., Ltd., a Korean company specializing in field-crop agricultural machinery and agricultural robots, are drawing attention with the ‘HADA-VP1,’ a fully automatic pepper and cabbage transplanter that automates the entire process from seedling extraction (pulling seedlings from trays) to transport, transplanting, and soil pressing.

Advanced ‘one-stop automatic seedling extraction’ technology expected to ease labor shortages
Conventional manual and semi-automatic transplanters required operators to stay on board at all times and feed seedlings by hand, making at least three to four workers essential, while the high labor intensity of working bent over for long periods was a major obstacle. In contrast, HADA’s fully automatic transplanter ‘HADA-VP1’ is equipped with its core technology, an ‘automatic seedling extraction device,’ enabling the machine to pull seedlings from trays on its own, transport them to the planting unit, plant them in the soil, and even press the soil down afterward in a one-stop process. As a result, it is being evaluated as a solution that can help relieve labor shortages, as highly skilled farmers may be able to operate it alone.

Adjust row spacing and wheel width with a single lever… reflects field-tailored agricultural data 
The ‘HADA-VP1’ offers a high degree of versatility by thoroughly reflecting the voices of farmers in the field. With simple lever operation, the in-row planting distance can be precisely controlled through stepless adjustment from 35 cm to 45 cm. In addition, through its ‘wheel width adjustment device,’ the distance between the wheels can be freely adjusted from 550 mm to 750 mm to match ridge width, providing excellent straight-line driving stability regardless of field conditions. Another strength is its adoption of an eccentric wheel movement method, allowing flexible response not only to single-row transplanting but also to two-row transplanting in a round trip (two-unit planting).

Peppers and cabbages with one machine… maximizing economic investment value 
It also presents a reasonable alternative in terms of economic feasibility for farm adoption. By using the built-in ‘pepper-cabbage conversion device,’ farmers can easily switch between pepper (72-cell tray) and cabbage (128-cell tray) seedling systems with a simple switching operation. In the case of peppers, it can stably plant seedlings up to 30 cm tall without obstruction. It is also expected to reduce the financial burden on farms that previously had to purchase expensive dedicated machinery for each crop, as it can be applied to a wide range of crops including cabbage and corn.
 

In terms of performance and efficiency, it is equipped with a 5.5-horsepower air-cooled four-cycle gasoline engine and designed with a total weight of 277 kg, making it easy for elderly farmers and women farmers to operate. Its work capacity is only about 1 hour to 1 hour and 20 minutes per 10a (about 300 pyeong). Compared with the conventional manual transplanting method, which took 4 to 5 hours, it is expected to significantly shorten working time, leading to tangible productivity gains and cost savings in farm management.

Kim Byeong-cheon, head of the HADA Technology Research Institute, said, “Japanese cabbage transplanters and leafy vegetable transplanters were developed about 30 to 40 years ago, and there is a strong image that Japanese products are good, so it is true that there is still a gap compared with Korea’s technology, which is only now taking its first steps.”

However, he added, “Japanese products require additional costs if you also introduce Japanese seedling trays and systems, so they are about 5 million to 10 million won more expensive than Korean products,” and “Korean products can transplant both peppers and cabbages and possess the technological distinction of having the entire process automated.”

Cheon Chang-uk, an agricultural researcher at the Field Agricultural Machinery Division of the RDA’s Department of Agricultural Engineering, said, “The mechanization rate for pepper and cabbage crops has been almost 0% in upland farming, and since other companies are not currently producing transplanters in this field, the development of this pepper-cabbage transplanter is highly meaningful in laying the foundation for the industrialization of upland agriculture.”

He also added, “The developed pepper-cabbage transplanter can be differentiated by the fact that its tray specifications were made to suit Korea’s conditions, and that Japan currently does not have a pepper transplanter,” adding, “We plan to promote a distribution project after launch so that it can be widely supplied to farms.” 

HADA Co., Ltd.’s pepper-cabbage transplanter is scheduled to be released in the second half of this year. Currently, the first sample unit has been produced and is under joint research with the RDA, and the company plans to continue improving the technology until launch.