Importance

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Abstract

An automatic transplanter utilizes relatively simple mechanical structure to so securely engage the root-bound plug of a seedling that the plug and seedling may be rapidly (a) lifted out of its small germination compartment, (b) horizontally transported to correct vertical register with its newly assigned soil-filled and dibbled larger compartment, and (c) accurately positioned in and discharged into the dibbled cavity. An illustrative relatively short two-second cycle is described wherein plural seedlings are thus concurrently transplanted, for each such cycle, from individual small compartments on a first periodically advanced conveyor of a two-dimensional array of germinated seedlings to correct individual larger compartments on a second conveyor that is also periodically advanced, but at a recurrence rate and incremental advance which differ from that of the first conveyor. All operations, including those involved in a multiple-plant pick-up, transport, and discharge, as well as dibbling, conveyor-advance increments and timing, and even automatic tagging of individual transplanted pottings, are under suitably programmed PC-computer control, and provision is made for such flexibility in setting up the apparatus as to adapt the same to changes in the two-dimensional array configurations and compartment-size proportions which may be involved in the automated transplanting of different varieties of plant seedlings.

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First Claim