Packaged plant material and method of production
AssigneeResearch Corporation
InventorsPhilip F. Wareing, Allan C. Cassells
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A pack of seedling plants includes a sealed, sterile dish containing an agar gel in which seedlings have been raised from seed sown in the gel. The pack may also include a growing tray for which a pack of compost may be provided, and a transparent cover which together form a propagator into which seedlings may be transplanted from the dish. The dish may be fixed to a backing and the various components of dish and backing, tray and cover snap fitted one with another to form a convenient package which also has the advantage of being rearrangeable to provide a robust package for the mail-order market.
Claims18
A pack for seedling plants including a translucent culture vessel sealed to inhibit moisture loss by evaporation, a layer of a sterile gel-type growing medium in the vessel and adhering to the vessel base, said layer being capable of maintaining its integrity when the vessel is inverted, a live plantlet within the vessel and rooted in said gel-type medium, and packaging means comprising a tray, granular growing medium in the tray and a translucent cover for the tray, said packaging means providing a container for the culture vessel and, after manual transplantation of the living plantlet from the gel-type medium to the granular medium, a propagator for growing the plantlet.
A method of producing a pack for seedling plants comprising forming in a culture vessel a layer of sterile gel-type plant culture medium, sterilizing seed of a selected plant species, sowing the sterilized seed in the gel-type medium, sealing the vessel to maintain asepsis therein, and germinating the seeds under controlled temperature and illumination conditions.
A pack for seedling plants including a sealed translucent culture vessel, an adherent layer of a gel-type growing medium on and coextensive with the vessel base, said layer being capable of maintaining its integrity when the vessel in inverted, a carrier plate, means on one surface of said plate for adhesively attaching the vessel thereto, a tray, means on the tray for clampingly engaging said carrier plate, said carrier plate being invertible so as to hold an adhesively attached vessel in optionally upright or inverted position, a pocket containing granular growing medium stored within the tray and providing a shock-absorbing cushion for an inverted culture vessel, a translucent cover for the tray, a flange on the cover for clamping engagement with the tray to form therewith, in a first configuration, a plant propagator and adapted to permit, in a second configuration, nesting of the tray within the cover, and a live plantlet within the vessel and rooted in the gel-type medium.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.