PlantTape Inc.

PlantTape improves agriculture

Our automated transplanting system increases crop yield, improves efficiency, and lowers per-acre cost for growers.
Efficiency through automation

What is PlantTape?
PlantTape is the world’s most advanced, efficient, and flexible process for the sowing, germination, and transplanting of crops.

PlantTape is a sowing and transplanting system.
We're not just in the business of selling farm equipment: we're providing something much better.
While we do manufacture our own agricultural equipment, we integrate that equipment into the larger PlantTape process.
The entire PlantTape process is built around our namesake innovation: a biodegradable tape that holds seeds and seedlings. The tape facilitates ease of sowing, efficient nursery operations, and automated transplanting.

PlantTape is an agtech company
PlantTape enables precision agriculture for growers of vegetables (common commodities include onions, cabbage, lettuce, leeks, broccoli, cauliflower, and kale), tomatoes, and hemp.

PlantTape material
PlantTape's proprietary tape material is the heart of our entire system. Everything else, from our transplanter to our transportation bins to our facilities, supports the remarkable efficiencies that our tape makes possible.
PlantTape—the tape itself—is a blend of peat, coco, and vermiculite between two layers of biodegradable paper. Sounds simple enough, but this humble innovation is driving an agricultural revolution.
Because of our tape, PlantTape offers growers a seamless, end-to-end agricultural solution for the entire process from sowing to transplanting in the field.
The tape enables the process
PlantTape receives and holds the grower's seeds during sowing operations. In the nursery, it enables timed germination and lets seedlings grow with correct root architecture. And, it allows our automated transplanter to deliver each transplant into the ground with unprecedented precision and control on the part of the grower.

The 3-part PlantTape process
SOWING
The PlantTape process begins in one of our sowing facilities. After seeds are dry-sown into our proprietary tape, the sown tape is palletized and shipped to the grower's nursery of choice.
NURSERY
The seeds will not germinate inside the tape until introduced to water. PlantTape's denser plant spacing (840 plants per tray) and shorter growing cycles (0-30 days) make for high-yield nursery operations.
TRANSPLANT
PlantTape's 3-point transplanter is fast (2-7 acres per hour) and pulls the tape from the nursery trays, cutting into individual transplants and precisely placing it into the ground at the desired depth and spacing.
Sowing operations
Once a customer's seed is received to a PlantTape sowing facility, it is inventoried and stored in a secure, climate-controlled room until sowing.
Seeds are sown into PlantTape material, after which the material is cut into strips (i.e, "tape"), folded, and loaded into trays of 840 seeds each.
The sown PlantTape is palletized, wrapped and labeled for immediate delivery to a commercial nursery or farming operation for germination at the desired time.
PlantTape gives logistical freedom
Because PlantTape sows seeds into a completely dry tape environment, growers can delay germination to account for unforeseen changes in weather or transplanting schedule.
Nursery operations
Nurseries initiate germination via standard irrigation methods.
PlantTape trays hold 840 plants—2-3 times more than standard transplant trays. With a denser seedling population, PlantTape maximizes nursery space and improves efficiencies through the nursery and field transportation process.
Flexible planting schedule
PlantTape transplants can be planted at any stage of growth. Such flexibility in the planting schedule allows growers to mitigate the impact of adverse weather and other uncontrollable circumstances.
Because PlantTape seedlings can be planted much younger than conventional transplants, nurseries have shorter growing cycles and higher overall throughput.
A competitive nursery advantage
More plants per square foot plus shorter growing cycles: PlantTape represents a significant competitive advantage for commercial nursery operations.
By implementing the PlantTape system, a plant nursery can significantly increase production without the capital costs of additional greenhouse space.
• Capacity: ~1 million plants per 5,000 ft 2
• Speed: 0-30 days per growing cycle
• Efficiency: 840 plants per tray
• Easy conversion for most nurseries

Transplanting
From the nursery, trays of PlantTape transplants are loaded into bins and shipped to the field.
At 840 plants per tray and 108 trays per bin, a PlantTape bin contains around 90,000 transplants.
Transplants are loaded into PlantTape's automated transplanter, which can carry 68 trays at a time (or around 57,000 plants).
The transplanter pulls the PlantTape material from the trays and places each transplant into the ground according to precise settings for line spacing, plant spacing, and depth.
The adaptable transplanter
PlantTape provides the benefits of automated transplanting without the drawbacks of other automated systems.
Other automated transplanters are factory-fixed for a specific wheelbase or bed configuration.
PlantTape's 3-point planter can be adjusted in the field for almost any bed configuration.
Its wheelbase is adjustable from 60"-84" with simple tools, and it can plant anywhere from 1-8 lines of plants.
• Capacity : 2-7 acres per hour
• Efficiency : 2-3 employees per machine
• Easily adjustable to most bed configurations (60”-84”)
User-friendly automated transplanting
PlantTape’s automated transplanter is easy to use and designed by farmers, for farmers. It is designed to withstand the elements, while giving growers the reliability and precision they need.
Where other automated transplanters rely on complex computer systems, actuators, and sensors, the PlantTape 3-point automated transplanter is 100% mechanical.
Line-to-line spacing can be altered in the field to allow for many different bed configurations. Growers can plant fields with different bed configurations on the same day with some mechanical adjustments. Plant-to-plant spacing can be altered on the fly.
Additionally, the PlantTape transplanter is crop-agnostic, meaning it will pull whatever plant species is in the nursery trays and put it into the ground.
Hydraulic-drive planter modules
PlantTape’s planter modules are driven by a hydraulic system. The hydraulic drive allows consistent spacing, even in challenging conditions, unlike chain-and-sprocket ground-driven transplanters that often slip or skip plants in sandy or slick soil.
PlantTape’s hydraulic drive also enables precision planting far beyond that of ground-drive transplanters. Where a ground-drive transplanter might allow plant spacing of 2” intervals, PlantTape’s transplanter allows extreme granularity: 6.83”, 9.1”, 7.72”, or whatever the grower’s data dictates is optimal.
Easy transplanter learning curve
Employees can be taught to operate the PlantTape automated transplanter in as little as 15 minutes. No special skills or training is required; the PlantTape system is that simple.
PlantTape competitive advantages
PlantTape delivers unprecedented efficiencies in sowing, nursery, and transplanting operations. With the PlantTape automated transplanting system, growers can:
• enjoy logistical flexibility by scheduling seed germination to meet their timeline
• navigate weather issues with the freedom to plant seedlings at any stage of development
• have healthier seedlings (minimal transplanting stress plus a natural root architecture)
• cut labor costs associated with planting
• cut peat inputs by 98%
• have a single transplanter for multiple crops and bed configurations
• enjoy easy maintenance and on-the-go adjustability with a 100% mechanically-operated automated transplanter
The PlantTape 3-point planter is the most advanced, user-friendly transplanter on the market today. It's just one component of an entire process that includes dry-sowing, on-time germination, high-yield nursery operations, and fast transplanting of seedlings.
Our proprietary PlantTape material, coupled with our world-class automated transplanter, delivers the benefits of precision agriculture to mid-size and large growers in the United States and around the globe.
PlantTape’s agronomical advantages
It’s easy to focus on PlantTape’s cost savings or ease of use. However, the benefits extend far beyond profit margins and user experience. PlantTape is a superior transplanting system from an agronomical perspective as well.
Benefits to seedlings
Healthier transplant roots
PlantTape seedlings have a much healthier root architecture compared to those from conventional transplanting trays. We believe that the “PlantTape root architecture” allows for higher uptake of nutrients into the plant, as well as accelerated early-stage growth.
Eliminate transplant shock
PlantTape is the only commercial-scale transplanting system that plants the whole seedling plug without yanking it from its celled tray. All other transplanting systems require seedlings to be pulled manually from the tray—a process that shocks the transplant and gives it yet another handicap to overcome in the field.
PlantTape eliminates seedling trauma because the transplanter pulls the tape from the nursery trays, cuts the tape, and places each transplant—still in its soil plug—into the ground. No manual handling of seedlings, not trauma from being uprooted.