Planting – Plant setting – Excavating transplanter
Patent
1991-11-08
1993-11-30
Reese, Randolph A.
Planting
Plant setting
Excavating transplanter
111102, 111115, A01C 1102
Patent
active
052655466
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a process of planting tree seedlings and other plants and plant cuttings and an apparatus suitable for carrying out the process.
There are various types of apparatus for planting tree seedlings having varying degrees of automation. One experimental system utilises a rigid container which surrounds the tree roots and which has a pointed lower end. The trees are grown in the package. The "bullet" container is punched into the ground where it remains in place. The concept however required the use of relatively expensive materials for the container. The requirement for a strong package capable of being punched into the ground and the biological requirements for a package after planting, to allow the roots of the tree to grow normally have not been satisfactorily combined. The method is inherently suitable for one specific type of package and thus lacks flexibility. For these reasons the system is not entirely satisfactory and has not become commercially successful.
Another experimental system for spot planting of tree seedlings is the "friction differential dibble concept". In this system a seedling is held between a pair of plates, one of which has a smooth surface with a low coefficient of friction and the other of which has a rough surface with a high coefficient of friction (the "friction plate") in contact with the seedling. An excavation is made in the ground, usually by a rotating tool, and then the plates, held substantially parallel with the tree between them, are lowered into the excavation. The smooth plate is then moved vertically upwards, leaving the friction plate in the excavation. The friction plate acts to retain the seedling in the ground. Once the smooth plate is clear of the seedling the friction plate is moved upwards, the tree being held in the ground by the soil which can now contact the roots and has a higher coefficient of friction than the friction place. This type of apparatus requires a separate cultivating tool. It it suitable only for use in well cultivated soil and is unsuitable for planting packaged root seedlings. In rough conditions the edges of the plates can become battered and turned and cannot function.
Systems with some degree of automation exist which operate on the principle of the tobacco transplanter, which was originally designed for manual operation. A tobacco transplanter consists of two plates which are held so that their lower edges form a cutting edge. These plates are thrust into the ground, the lower edges are pushed apart to form an excavation in the ground. A plant is then dropped between the opened plates and the plates are removed vertically to clear the ground and the plant. At least one apparatus exists having some degree of automation and having means for automatically dropping or blowing the plant down into the excavation made by the plates. One problem with these types of tools is that in order to ensure that the plants, and in particular bare root plants, drop to the bottom of an excavation, the hole must be relatively large. Although this enables the plates to be lifted clear of the ground and the seedling, it leaves a large excavation which requires to be closed. The existing systems are capable of handling a limited range of packaged root seedlings only, and even those are not planted with adequate consistence with these devices.
FR-A-637693 discloses an automated planting device wherein a planting head containing a plant is lowered into the ground and its plates open forming an excavation into which the plant is subsequently released and held by forked means while filling in of the excavation takes place.
Other planting processes exist which involve the formation of a continuous or intermittant furrow, into which a seedling can be placed by hand, or sometimes, by some type of automated feed mechanism, and the furrow is then closed. Such devices invariably require some manual feed operations, demand more power for turning up the ground than spot planters and cannot work in typical logged ground because of the prese
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Reese Randolph A.
Warnick Spencer
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