Soil compressing blocker with molded plunger for seed starting
AssigneeJohnny's Selected Seeds
InventorsGraham Bowe, Bradford Waugh, Arthur Haines, Ronald DiGravio
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A plunger device for making soil blocks. The plunger device is used to form soil blocks in a grid to facilitate seedling growth. The plunger is made of a configuration and material by casting or molding to compress soil consistently and evenly into blocks for seeding. The plunger device includes a plurality of plungers joined together that align with the rows of cells within the grid. The benefit of cast or molded plungers of the present invention is their uniform shape that will not bend of deform as prior sheet metal plungers potentially can.
Claims17
A soil blocking plunger device comprising:
- a joining body comprising a first corner chamfer and a second corner chamfer;
- a first handle disposed over at least a portion of the first corner chamfer;
- a second handle disposed over at least a portion of the second corner chamfer;
- and
- a plurality of plungers joined together by the joining body, wherein each plunger of the plurality of plungers includes a main body with an upper section, a lower section, and an end cap joined to the lower section, wherein the upper section of each plunger is joined to the joining body, wherein the lower sections of each plunger are spaced from one another and not joined together;
- wherein the main body, the upper section, the lower section, and the end cap of each plunger are each made of one or more materials of sufficient structural integrity to minimize deformation thereof when soil compressing force is applied to the joining body;
- and
- wherein the end cap of each plunger includes a base, wherein the base has a bottom configured to removably fit in a frame of a soil blocker frame cell substantially and uniformly with application of pressure to the joining body.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.