Patent ID: 8573142

Claim:
Apparatus for separating seedling plants having leaves grown in adjacent rows in nursery trays and for picking up an entire row of seedlings from a nursery tray without significant damage to the leaves of seedlings in adjacent rows, which nursery tray may be provided with a plurality of adjacent rows of seedlings, each seedling including a root ball, stem, and leaves; the apparatus comprising: a nursery tray indexing mechanism which indexes nursery trays one row at a time; a carriage; means for extracting an entire row of seedlings mounted on the carriage; means for moving the carriage between a extended position where the means for extracting an entire row of seedlings is to one side of the tray indexing mechanism and a retracted position where the means for extracting an entire row of seedlings is located adjacent a nursery tray; and aggressive means for separating the leaves of seedlings in adjacent rows, wherein the aggressive means for separating the leaves is a rotating beater bar, the beater bar being positioned at an angle to the nursery tray and the beater bar being provided with a progressive taper, the beater bar being mounted for movement with the carriage.