Planting – Plant setting – Plant dispensing
Patent
1995-03-06
1997-10-14
Melius, Terry Lee
Planting
Plant setting
Plant dispensing
47 101, 47901, 414404, A01C 1100, A01C 1102
Patent
active
056760728
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to improved machinery for handling plants or seedlings in a prepared ground planting position, preferably from a nursery growing container wherein plants are located in individual cells, the cells being located in spaced rows. Conveniently, the machinery is adapted to transfer and plant seedlings or plants from such containers with minimum or no manual intervention required.
Machinery of this general type is shown in Australian Patent No. 593066 where seedlings are transplanted from a cell chain in which they have been initially propagated and grown. In many nursery operations, however, seedlings are grown in rigid flat trays and it is also desired to provide a mechanism for transplanting seedlings from such trays to a prepared ground planting position. The provision of such machinery, however, is faced with a number of practical problems. Firstly, it is desirable to achieve fast transplanting speeds. Secondly, propagation of seedlings is not always 100% successful and inevitably a number of cells in a propagating tray will not hold a seedling or at least a viable seedling for transplanting. It is of course desirable to avoid spaces in ground planting positions caused by missing seedlings in the tray which then have to be planted manually. Thirdly, it is desirable to avoid any discontinuities in planting that might arise by the fact that indexing trays is necessarily not a fully continuous process. Fourthly, it is desirable to avoid or minimize transplanting errors that could arise by growth of seedlings flowing over into adjacent cell regions of a propagating tray. Finally it is desirable to keep the width of transplanting machines as low as possible and it is therefore desirable to load trays in a vertical manner generally in the planting direction which, however, necessitates reorienting the seedlings in some manner so that they are not transverse to the planting direction of the machine.
According to a first aspect, of the present invention there is provided a field seedling planting machine movable in a planting direction for transplanting seedlings propagated in seedling trays in a predetermined array of cells in said trays, said machine including eject means for ejecting said seedlings from the cells in a said tray either one by one or in groups so as to dispose said seedlings in seedling holding means of conveying means for delivering said seedlings sequentially to a prepared ground planting position, said planting machine being characterized by said conveyor means comprising a first conveyor means including said seedling holding means driven by first drive means so as to move said first conveyor means whereby said seedlings are sequentially delivered to an intermediate transfer region, a second conveyor means being disposed to receive said seedlings from said first conveyor means at said intermediate transfer region and to deliver said seedling to the prepared ground planting position, second drive means for driving said second conveyor means, sensor means located adjacent said first conveyor means at or preceding said transfer region arranged to determine if a seedling is held in each said seedling holding means, and control means linked with said sensor means and the first drive means to drive said first conveyor means in response to information received from said sensor means independently of said second drive means whereby seedlings are carried substantially equally spaced by said second conveyor means regardless of spacing of said seedlings on said first conveyor means. By such an arrangement it is possible to maintain substantially uniform spacing of plants in the ground even though certain cells in a tray being transplanted may not contain a seedling suitable for transplanting.
In accordance with a second aspect of this invention, a machine is provided that is movable in a planting direction for transplanting seedlings propagated in a predetermined array of cells in seedling trays, said machine including eject means for ejecting said seedlings from the cells in
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Melius Terry Lee
Pezzuto Robert
Williames Hi-Tech International PTY Ltd.
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