Propagation: Propagation: part XIII based on my own experience, 1 by Pughbear7

Pughbear7 wrote:
You are right. It was a quick search and I found hte labels I am sure there are a good deal more out there. I thought the price was realatively affordable though. so janet where did your labels come from? "as i adjust the flood lights and turn the heat up"
Does the packaging have any manufacturer's name or other odd stuff to leed us to their source?
I have been chatting with Janette about some grafted Japanese Maples That I am looking at buying. some how we ended up on the subject of seeding a flat.
I told her about a piece of equipment that acurately seeds the tine seeds in the 505's (505 cells per 21"x11" tiny tiny cells). anyway they make a vacume seeder that picks up one seed per hole and holds it in place while the loose seeds can be moved back into the seed bin. It places one seed in each hole. no quess work or fumbleing with the microscopic sized seeds to sow into flats. Has anyone ever seen the size of a begonia seed? It looks like 1/4 of a pepper flake. Here is a link that talks about mecanization of planting and transplanting.
The process starts with a person placing flats and poys in 2 seperate hoppers. The machines lift out the exact number of pots and places them in a flat and onto a conveyour belt. the flat moves down the line where it is filled with soil. the excess soil is brushed off the flat and drops down to another conveyour belt that takes the excess back to the hopper of soil. the flat continues on and is drilled with holes the size of the transplant going into the flats. as the flat continues on down the conveyour workers place transplants into the holes and the flat continues on where the flat is water by an automatic waterer then the flats continue on to be placed onto a cart or other moving aid.

Here is a link explaining some of what I may have missed or a better explaination.
http://www.umass.edu/umext/floriculture/fact_sheets/greenhou...

I got the treat of buying the left over pentas from parks plants. their facility is just outside tampa. They have 2 levels where worker place plants into their holes as the flats go by. they use styrofoam flats and move all the flats flooding water into the trough and bay . Its kind of like the boats in venice italy. They have 2 main troughs that go the length of the greenhouses and meet up at the other end of the head house. they fill the area where the new flats are going as well as the main trough and float the flats to the area they are going to. Its all concrete with 4 inch side walls to hold all the water and flats in. By useing concreat they can also disinfect each bay between crops. the greenhouses are about 150ft long and they must have 20 to 40 houses conected to the head house. for small orders they use either a rail system or the water to move the plants as they are sold.
The styrofoam flats are 2' x 4' and hold a lot of plants. The water is recirrculated so there is no waste and very little exposure of chemicals and fertilizers to the outside enviroment.
We would buy qt pentas for 10 cents each. They were the rejects from their operation. we would pick them up at their facility take them back to our nursery and plant them in gallon pots. right after they were planted we would cut them back and propagate the tips.
They must have had 20 to 30 ladies sticking the transplants into the flats going into their new homes.
I am sorry if some of this is redundant as it all is off the top of my head from memory...we all know I sometimes have issue with my memories. Partimerze kicks in from time to time.