Investigation of the Mechanical Factors Affecting Cutting Resistance of Tomato and Eggplant Seedling Stems at the Grafting stage

Today, development of vegetable farming is involved with the development of knowledge and equipment for production of grafted plants. This area is classified in the field of biosystems engineering and mechanics of cutting should be investigated as the first steps in this field. In this research, effects of the type of cutting blade, loading rate, oblique angle, and tilt angle were studied on two important parameters in cutting including cutting energy and maximum cutting force of tomato and eggplant seedlings. The results showed that the maximum specific cutting force and the specific cutting energy were in the range of 0.2-5.5 N per millimeter of stem diameter and 0.2-5 mJ per square millimeter of stem cross section, respectively. Statistical analysis of the data revealed that only blade type and oblique angle significantly affected the cutting parameters. Among prevalent blade types in vegetable grafting operations, razor blade requires the minimum cutting force and increasing the blade oblique angle is useful in making a smooth cut.