Automated Strawberry Plug Transplanter Demonstration, Santa Maria CA

After plug plants are grown in a greenhouse and hardened off outdoors, they are transported to the field where they are work crews load them into rotating cups on the plug transplanter rig. The transplanter rig punches holes through the plastic into the soil ahead of the rotating cups, which then drop plants into the holes. Wheels run on both sides of planted plug to compress the soil. Crews then perform quality checks on transplanted plugs.