Inventions & Discoveries · Farming and food

Seed drill

c. 1400 BCE · 15th century BCE

A seed drill is a device that sows seeds by placing them in the soil at a set depth; the Babylonians used primitive seed drills around 1400 BCE. The Chinese invented multi-tube iron seed drills in the 2nd century BCE. In Europe the first known seed drill was patented in Venice in 1566 and Jethro Tull refined it in 1701, but drills spread widely only in the mid to late 19th century. A seed drill can raise the yield per seed planted as much as eightfold compared with broadcasting by hand.

Seed drill
Image: Song Yingxing (Tiangong Kaiwu, 1637) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

On the inventions tree

First known
c. 1400 BCE
Where
Babylonia
Credited to
Babylonia

Also arose independentlyChina (multi-tube iron drills) (2nd century BCE)

NoteThe first single-tube seed drills may go back to Sumer.

Built onPloughc. 2800 BCE

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See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Seed drill. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/seed-drill
MLA
“Seed drill.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/seed-drill. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Seed drill.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/seed-drill.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Seed drill’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/seed-drill (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻