Even the best greenhouse conditions make having a tray of perfectly matched plants a costly goal. But Spring Meadow Nursery in Grand Haven, Mich., found a way to reach that level of quality without straining its labor budget.
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Step 1
After workers place a plant tray on the conveyor belt, it is fed into a trimming machine that cuts the tray down each strip between its cells. This creates long, narrow strips of cells.
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Step 1 (continued)
The machine then turns the cut tray to move forward horizontally, and it enters a second trimmer that cuts the trays again, this time resulting in plants in their individual cells, free of their original pack.
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Step 2
The single cells move forward, still grouped with their pack, until the pack is positioned in front of an arm that can pick up several individual plants at a time. The arm moves the plants into a narrow channel that moves each plant past a scanner. The scanner measures the plant’s habit and size, which determines where the plant goes next.
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Step 3
The machine sorts up to a maximum of four different habits or sizes and can handle plants up to 10-inches tall. Each group is sorted into a different channel.
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Step 4
Once enough plants of a similar size are grouped together, an arm reaches down and picks up several of the plants and places them into a new tray
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Step 5
Now the plants can be sent back into the greenhouse to be readied for delivery, receiving the appropriate amount of inputs needed according to their stage of growth
Spring Meadow’s sorting machine, PlugSorter ECO, which was customized for Spring Meadow’s needs by TTA USA< LLC, allows packs of immature plants to be divided, scanned for size, then sorted into size groups of like-sized plants before being regrouped back into a pack.