A Portable Precision Fluid Planter For Pre-Germinated Vegetable Seeds

Small and mid-sized family farms comprise over 95% of America's farms and theirproductivity is critical to our nation's future.Increasing the productivity of all farms is anessential goal and it is especially challenging for small farms.Many of these small and mid- sized farms grow a variety of vegetables flowers and specialty crops but often do not haveaccess to the technical or financial resources needed to boost productivity—e.g. cost-cutting orlabor-saving innovations.The goal of this Phase I SBIR project is to prove the feasibility of anovel device designed to greatly reduce labor and production costs for many small and mid-sizedfarmers.We propose to develop an innovative portable precision fluid drill for planting singlegerminated vegetable seeds that will improve productivity and reduce energy compared to theincumbent method of growing and planting transplants for high-value crops.The projectobjectives are to show that 1) modulated compressed air and vacuum can regulate the flow of theseed-gel mixture to accurately extrude a single plantable seed; 2) a simple low-cost opticalsensor can detect seeds and control flow such that only one seed is deposited at each desiredlocation; and 3) the system works when worn by a user working on common seed bed situationssuch as bare soil plasti-culture and no-till.Phase I success will set the stage for a larger PhaseII SBIR project focused on developing a prototype production backpack system that can be usedto validate commercial potential in broad-based field trials.Anticipated results/Potential Commercial ApplicationsPlant scientists have proven the feasibility/advantages of planting pre-germinatedvegetable seeds but the available planters could not plant one and only one seed and weretractor-drawn.For this project we anticipate a next-generation advance in terms of providing anaffordable light-weight portable backpack planter for small and mid-size farms.The low-costsystem will eliminate the current expensive and labor-/energy-consuming transplant process. Asenvisioned seeds will be germinated in the company's proprietary automated table-top system— after which the seeds and holding fluid will be transferred to a backpack planter designed towork without heavy pumps and valves.The user will deposit individual seeds precisely in fieldsgreenhouses or pots.The system could also be adapted to plant microgreens. Whencommercially deployed the envisioned system can be used by vegetable flower medicinal herband specialty crop growers worldwide and this technology can also be adapted for use in largerautomated mechanical planting systems.