Labor is often the single largest expense in a controlled environment agriculture operation. Hand seeding flats is time consuming, but one way to decrease seeding labor is to use automation or mechanization to make more efficient use of time. Many automatic/mechanized seeders are commercially available. Although they may not be essential for small operations, the frequency that seeding will occur (daily as in vegetable production vs. seasonally as in bedding plant production) should be considered.
There are a several ways that a seeder can pick up and deliver the seeds. Most rely on using a vacuum to hold the seeds onto a plate, drum, or needle. Some seeders also fill the tray with root medium, create holes in the medium using a dibbler, cover the seeds, and add water after seeding. The number of trays that can be filled in an hour varies with the number of cells in the tray (e.g., 288 vs. 508) and price depends on the number of added features, but a range of each is given below for comparison. Often, the seeder will require an air compressor that is not included in the base price.
|
Trays/hour (288 cell plug tray) |
Price |
Drum Seeder |
700 |
$24,000 |
Plate Seeder |
100 |
$650 - $1000 |
Needle Seeder |
200 |
$3000 – $22000 (for odd shaped seed) |
Drum seeder – This seeder loads an entire flat’s worth of seed from a reservoir and then deposits as the flat moves quickly under the drum. This is the fastest method.
Plate Seeder (aka, Vacuum Template Seeder) - This is the most labor intensive seeder. The user pours seeds onto a custom-drilled plate (which looks like a cookie sheet) that has holes that are slightly smaller than the seeds. Each hole corresponds to a cell in the flat/tray. A vacuum is applied under the plate and a seed is drawn onto each hole. The tray is inverted, the vacuum is removed, and the seeds fall into their correct locations. It takes a minute or more to load each set of seeds because the user must be sure, before seeding the tray, that each hole has a seed attached and there are not multiple seeds over single holes. Different plates must be purchased when the seed size changes dramatically, or when the flat configuration changes.
Automatic needle seeder – An intermediate speed seeder that loads seeds from a reservoir with vacuum pressure and pivots to the cell that is to be seeded.
