Plant husbandry – Miscellaneous
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-10
2001-04-10
Poon, Peter M. (Department: 3643)
Plant husbandry
Miscellaneous
C111S100000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06212821
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field
This invention relates to an automatic plant selector that is adapted to minimize the transplant of non-viable seedlings.
2. Background Art
There are various problems associated with automatic transplant devices. Some of these problems are related to the configuration of the transplant device, while other problems are related to the manner in which seedlings are selected for transplant.
By way of background, a practice widely used in agriculture is that plants are grown in nursery trays to a height of 3 to 5 inches, at which point they are transplanted into a field where they are grown to maturity. Various transplant machines are available that will put a plant into the ground at the correct spacing, however, most of these machines require that a person be seated on the transplant machine to manually take one plant at a time from a nursery tray and place it into the transplant machine. Other machines are available which will automatically place plants into the transplant machine. However, these automatic plant selector machines are plagued with the problem of placing non-viable or “blank” seedlings into the transplant machine. The transplant of blanks into a field serves to significantly limit crop yields as the remaining viable seedlings grow to maturity. While using human labor to provide seedlings to a transplant machine can significantly reduce the incidence of blanks, the cost of such labor can be prohibitive.
Plant selectors used with automatic transplant devices use single nursery trays that are indexed, or moved in steps in the X-Y plane, such that cells in the tray become available, in turn, to a plant removal mechanism. The plant removal mechanism removes seedlings from the tray and provides them either singly, or in groups, to the automatic transplant device for transplanting into a field. Many of these devices ignore the presence of blank or non-viable cells. Other devices may use sensors to determine whether a viable seedling has been selected. Such devices may attempt to select an alternate seedling from the nursery tray to replace a non-viable seedling. However, indexing the tray to provide alternate seedlings to the plant removal device may require the transplant machine to slow or stop while an alternate is selected.
Therefore, in order to overcome the limitations of prior transplant devices, what is needed is a device that will eliminate the requirement of human labor by automatically providing seedlings to an automatic transplant device. In addition, this device should significantly limit the incidence of blank transplants by ensuring that the seedlings provided to the automatic transplant device are viable. Further, the selection of viable seedlings should not require the automatic transplant device to wait for an alternate seedling when the plant removal mechanism encounters a non-viable or blank cell in the nursery tray.
SUMMARY
An automatic plant selector according to the present invention satisfies all of the foregoing needs. The plant selector eliminates the requirement of human labor while significantly reducing the percentage of non-viable or “blank” transplants when using an automatic transplant device to plant seedlings. The reduction in blanks is accomplished by using a secondary nursery tray to supply a seedling when a plant sensor device indicates that a primary nursery tray can not supply a viable seedling. The nursery trays are comprised of multiple individual cells, each cell containing a single seedling. Because a secondary tray is used, an alternate seedling may be supplied to the automatic transplant device immediately upon detection of a blank cell in the primary tray.
The plant selector functions as an attachment to automatic transplant devices such as, for example, a rotary cup transplanter. A scaffold is attached to the top of the automatic transplant device to provide a framework for the components of the automatic plant selector. The plant selector has a primary and a secondary side, which are identical with one exception. The primary side has a plant sensor device that is used to determine whether an active cell in the primary nursery tray has a viable seedling. The secondary side does not use a plant sensor device.
Each side of the automatic plant selector has a full tray holder that holds multiple nursery trays of seedlings for transplant. The full tray holders are attached to a primary and a secondary track on the interior of the scaffold. The track allows the full tray holders to be moved in horizontal steps, i.e. “indexed.” In addition, nursery trays that are held within the full tray holders are indexed in vertical steps. Indexing of the nursery trays is accomplished mechanically using computer and/or mechanical control of motors to move the primary and secondary tracks. As each track is indexed, the nursery tray that it holds is also indexed such that each cell in the nursery tray is exposed in turn to a primary or a secondary plant removal device, or “plant puller,” for the primary or secondary nursery tray, respectively. The primary and secondary plant pullers are attached to the primary and secondary sides of the interior of the scaffold. The plant pullers for both the primary and secondary nursery trays are separate yet identical.
The secondary tray is initially indexed simultaneously with the primary tray such that an active cell in both the primary and secondary tray is available to the primary or secondary plant puller. The primary and secondary plant pullers are in continuous operation, and will attempt to remove a plant from a nursery tray whenever a tray is indexed. Once the primary tray has been indexed and is in position, the primary plant puller attempts to remove a seedling from the active cell in the primary nursery tray. The plant sensor associated with the primary plant puller indicates to a control mechanism whether a viable seedling was removed from the primary nursery tray by the primary plant puller. If the primary plant puller was successful in “pulling” a viable seedling from the tray, the seedling is released into the automatic transplant device where it is subsequently transplanted into the field. If the plant sensor indicates that the primary plant puller was unsuccessful, the secondary tray is indexed and the secondary plant puller removes an alternate seedling from the secondary tray. This alternate seedling is then supplied to the automatic transplant device where it is subsequently transplanted into the field. The primary tray is then indexed such that the next cell in the primary tray is in position for the primary plant puller. This process is repeated until the nursery tray is emptied by the plant puller. As nursery trays are emptied, they are automatically moved to a primary or secondary empty tray storage cage that is attached to the primary or secondary side of the exterior of the scaffold. As the empty tray is removed, it is automatically replaced with a full nursery tray from the primary or secondary full tray holder. Indexing and removal of seedlings from the replacement tray begins immediately.
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Adam Dominic L.
Adam Kieran L.
Lyon Richard
Lyon, Harr and DeFrank
Nguyen Son T.
Poon Peter M.
Watson Mark
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