How to make the Slide Hammer Seeder 

Planting small seeds like sweet alyssum and purslane by hand at accurate seeding rates is difficult. The slide hammer seeder is a novel tool that can help. The seeder is a jab-type planter made primarily from electrical conduit tubing and other materials that are inexpensive and readily available in a hardware store or on the internet. The interchangeable seed hopper is made from a plastic snap cap vial that has one or more holes of varying diameter depending on the desired seeding rate and seed size. This video augments a paper published in the journal HortTechnology that provides detailed plans to make and use the SH seeder. Here's a link to the paper PDF drive.google.c... (see citation below). The fabrication time is 2 to 4 h with a material cost of about $32. The seeder was evaluated with chives, basil, amaranth, sweet alyssum, purslane, creeping thyme and spearmint with seeds that ranged in size from about 200 to 11,000 seeds per gram. The seeder can be useful for interplanting sweet alyssum as an insectary plant for aphid control between existing plants of organic lettuce and for intercropping cultivars of purslane as a novel vegetable in between transplanted organic broccoli. This novel seeding tool has many potential uses for direct, hand seeding in vegetable and herb production systems and in weed research trials. The seeder could be automated and made with a variety of alternative materials. Link to suggest spring. www.centuryspr...
⌚Clickable TABLE OF CONTENTS. This helps you navigate the video
6:42 How to make it
38:46 How it works
41:09 Field Demonstration and Rap :).
47:02 Seed Tape Reference
48:30 Seeding Rate Adjustment
51:01 Alternative Vials
53:36 Alternative Shoes
55:52 Alternative Springs
57:34 Original Design
Publication pdf
Brennan, E.B. 2018. The Slide Hammer Seeder: A Novel Tool for Planting Small Seeds. Hortechnology 28:764-775
drive.google.c...