Patent Application
20100192461
(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a seedling apparatus, and more particularly to a stacked tray container seedling apparatus that uses a tray container as a unit to facilitate a central management of seedlings or transplanting an entire unit of seedlings to a cultivated land, and storing an appropriate quantity of water for a better growth of vegetables.
(b) Description of the Related Art
In recent years, our economic structure is changed, and the agricultural production is encountering all kinds of problems including insufficient labor, increased wage and too-small business scale, and thus the production cost cannot be lowered. Since our living standard is improved, the labor for agricultural productions is divided professionally, and farmers have increasingly higher demands on seedling transplants, the seedlings are essential to automated agricultural productions.
Since the tray container seedling technology has the advantages of saving seeds, providing a consistent growth of seedlings, minimizing pests and diseases, giving a high survival rate of transplants, and permitting early harvests, therefore increasingly more farmers purchase tray container seedlings from seedling centers, and the automated seedling production is developed rapidly. With reference to
The two conventional tray containers 81 have a plurality of cells 82 of a specific height and disposed on the trays of specific appearance and size, and the cells 82 are arranged and provided for transplanting a plurality of seedlings 90 in small pots (as shown in
Basically, the size and interval of the cells in the tray containers will affect the quantity of seedlings directly. For example, the number of cells can be increased by decreasing the interval of cells in the tray containers of the same size, and more seedlings can be cultivated accordingly. The cells of most conventional tray containers are usually designed and arranged in a chess-shape, such that the latitude and longitude of the cells can be arranged densely to achieve the effects of reducing the interval of cells as well as increasing the number of cells in a tray container or permitting more seedlings. However, the decreased interval of cells affects the production of seedlings and causes an unmatched condition with the expected interval of seedlings in the tray container when the seedlings are transplanted to the cultivated area, and thus it is necessary to move the seedlings one by one from the tray container to the cultivated area. Such arrangement causes tremendous trouble to the management and the transplant of the seedlings.
With reference to
If it is necessary to transport the vegetable seedlings for a longer distance, cartons are generally used for the transportation, and thus the vegetable seedlings cannot be too wet, or else the cartons will be broken or damaged easily. If the tray container 81 does not come with a drainage hole 83, then the aforementioned problem will be solved automatically. However, excessive water in the cell 82 will kill the seedlings or cause pests and diseases of the seedlings, but insufficient water will dry up the vegetable seedlings and incur losses during long-distance transportations. Otherwise, the seedlings must be watered from time to time to maintain the moisture for the seedling, and thus causing tremendous inconvenience.
It is a primary objective of the present invention to overcome the shortcomings of the prior art by providing a convenient stacked tray container seedling apparatus for a central management of seedlings, and transplanting an entire unit of seedlings directly to a cultivated area.
To achieve the foregoing objective, the present invention provides a set of stacked tray container seedling apparatus comprising two identical tray containers, and each tray container includes a plurality of cells and through holes arranged alternately and regularly with each other, wherein the cells of a tray container are stacked on the through holes of another tray container respectively, or the stacked tray container seedling apparatus comprises at least two corresponding tray containers, and the cells between the tray containers are arranged alternately with each other, and the through holes disposed between the cells of each tray container are corresponsive to the cells of other tray containers respectively. In other words, the positions of the cells between the tray containers will not be overlapped, and the cells can be passed into the corresponding through holes.
Each set of stacked tray container seedling apparatus can use the cells of each tray container for planting the seedlings, and all tray containers can be stacked with each other for a central management or transportation. After the seedlings grow to a certain level, the seedlings together with the tray container are transplanted to a cultivated area for the cultivation of the seedlings.
Further, the cells have one or more through holes disposed at a position higher than the bottom of the cell, and each cell can contain one vegetable seedling. With the height difference between the through hole and the bottom of the cell, a storage space is defined for storing an appropriate quantity of water at the bottom of the cell.
Compared with the prior art, the present invention has the following effects:
1. Each set of stacked tray container seedling apparatus provides a planar space for arranging a number of cells evenly in a plurality of tray containers, so that the interval of seedlings in each tray container can be increased significantly to provide a better growing space for the seedlings.
2. The interval of the cells in each tray container can meet the requirements for the growth of seedlings after the seedlings are transplanted to the cultivated area and facilitate the cultivation of the transplanted seedlings.
3. The entire unit of seedlings can be transplanted directly to the cultivated area, and thus improving the production capacity of the seedling and the transplant operation greatly.
4. All tray containers are stacked with each other to facilitate a central management or transportation.
5. An appropriate quantity of water can be stored at the bottom of the cells to achieve the effects of providing a better growth of vegetables, reducing the number of times of watering, and facilitating long-distance transportations.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description taken with the accompanying drawing.
The present invention discloses a stacked tray container seedling apparatus which is an apparatus used in the tray container seedling technology for containing seedlings, facilitating a central management of the seedlings, and transplanting an entire unit of seedlings directly to a cultivated area. Two preferred embodiments are provided for illustrating the present invention as follows:
With reference to
With reference to
In
In the second preferred embodiment as shown in
The quantity of tray containers and the arrangement of cells of each type of the seedling apparatuses primarily provide a planar space for arranging the cells evenly in a plurality of tray containers to increase the interval of seedlings of each tray container substantially, such that the seedlings can have a better growing space, and the interval of seedlings in each tray container can even meet the requirement for growing the transplanted seedlings in the cultivated area to facilitate the cultivation of the transplanted seedlings, and can transplant an entire unit of seedlings directly to a cultivated area for improving the production capacity of the transplanted seedlings.
The cell 12 further includes a hole 121 disposed higher than the bottom of the cell 12 as shown in
In
While the invention has been described by means of specific embodiments, numerous modifications and variations could be made thereto by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention set forth in the claims.
