DEVELOPMENT OF A SEMI AUTOMATIC TRANSPLANTER

The commercial transplanters are operated by hand feeding of individual seedlings into clamps which place them into the ground.
The average rate of planting per worker is limited to 30 – 40 plants/min.
The present development work concerns a semi-automatic system in which the seedlings are fed in batches by hand into a horizontal feeding conveyor divided into cross-wise partitions.
The conveyor delivers single plants into split cone-cups by setting them into the ground in their natural growing position.
This development, which is the first step towards a fully automated system, was aimed at increasing the rate of planting to facilitate planting of a wide assortment of seedlings and for planting through mulching which has become a wide spread practise.

The field test showed that loading in batches increased the feeding rate to 90 plants/min.
The cone-cups perforated the plastic mulching film and placed the seedlings in the required position.
The size of the plants was found to be a critical parameter for good field operation.

Further development is needed in order to improve plant transfer from the feeding conveyor into the cone-cups and in order to get better plant positioning under wet soil conditions.

I International Symposium on Mechanization of Vegetable Production

A. Margolin, Y. Alper, A. Eshed

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1986.187.24