Iran with 127.9 tons of saffron holds the first rank in production of this crop throughout the world. A major portion of this production comes from Khorasan province with a yield of 4.8 kg/ha. Saffron bulbs are planted in the conventional way of using hand planting methods in Iran as well as in other countries of the world. This method reduces yield, and causes difficulties in harvesting operations. To overcome some of those problems a planting machine was designed and constructed. The main concern was to design and construct a two-row bulb planter to plant saffron bulbs in 20cm row spacings and 15cm planting depths without having the bulbs damaged. Four laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate the four important bulb properties os size, density, bulk density, and friction angle between bulbs and steel sheets. Many designs were considered before cup shape metering mechanism was selected and then the suitable cup constructed. The Conveyor belt (metering device) was equipped with a couple of two alternate cup rows, each cup carrying one bulb taken from the happer. Single bulbs from each of the two-cup row metering mechanisms fall into each one of the two previously constructed furrows. Finally the planter was evaluated. Results indicated no damage of the bulbs. Percent bulbs with no diversion from the predetermined bulb spacing and final mean measured spacings were 77 and 85 respectively. Field capacity of planter was 0.12 ha/hr at a speed of 3km/hr. When speed increased from 3 to 4 kmlhr, number of bulbs sown per meter length decreased for about 14.2 percent.
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