Bud of California

Bud Antle, Inc.

Dole Fresh Vegetables Co.

Javier Diaz-Infante

Leon P Ventura

Edward Wynn

Anna M Boeh

Peter deGroot

Errol C Armstrong

Peter DeGroot

David J Hall

Ed Wynn

A broccoli banding machine having an electric DC motor drive actuated by an interrupted optical beam is disclosed. The banding machine includes a plate with a central aperture defining a depending cylinder. The depending cone has a light beam looking across the cylinder which when interrupted keeps arms having band engaging fingers in the band expanded position. Both arms and fingers are mounted above the supporting plate where access and view of arms by the banding and packing worker is provided at all times. Upon gathering broccoli to a bouquet with both hands, the worker places the stalks of the gathered bouquet into the cylinder, interrupting the light beam. Upon such interruption, the arms at the band engaging fingers are cycled into the bunched stalks, the contracted band released to the stalk, the bouquet at the stalks removed from the vicinity of the fingers, and a new rubber band placed upon the centrally disposed fingers. Thereafter, and at the end of a timed cycle, the arms with the band engaging fingers expand the newly installed band, and the cycle repeated. An improved drive is present for the arms in the form of a DC electric motor, which intermittently rotates over approximate 180.degree. intervals at a set and adjustable rate. There results an improved banding operation which ergogenically cooperates with the entirety of the broccoli bunching, banding and packing processes.

Broccoli banding machine

An arm and cradle apparatus is disclosed for receiving empty trays from an upper conveyor having empty lettuce holding and transporting trays, lowering the received empty tray to an angular disposition in which it can most conveniently be packed, and finally off loading the packed full tray to a lower conveyor having full lettuce holding trays thereon for plunging to cartons. The arm and cradle apparatus is mechanically passive in that all movements of the trays to and from the arm and cradle apparatus are either worker assisted or occur under the natural gravity biased movement of the arm and cradle apparatus.

Packing station for lettuce receiving trays

A lettuce head holding tray is defined in which both the upper tray layer and the lower tray layer are packed side-by-side at packing stations. At a carton loading station, two side-by-side arrays of plungers each are used for packing of discrete layers of the cartons. One array of plungers packs the bottom carton layer; the other array of plungers packs the top carton layer. Two cartons are disposed opened upwardly to the plunger array at the packing station; one carton is disposed to the bottom layer loading plunger array for packing of the bottom layer and the other carton--with its bottom layer previously packed--is disposed to the top layer loanding plunger array for packing of its top layer. The cartons--between the packing of the bottom layer and the packing of the top layer--are conveyed between positions underlying the plunger arrays. Thus each carton has is lower layer packed by the lower layer loading plunger array and then its top layer packed by the upper layer loading plunger array.

Apparatus and process for the automated packing of lettuce

A lettuce packing machine for the packing of heads of lettuce in corrugated, carboard cartons is disclosed. A lettuce head holding tray is loaded with lettuce. Thereafter, the tray is utilized to pack cartons. The lettuce head holding trays has discrete lettuce receiving cells upwardly exposed. Each tray contains four columns of cells, each column of cells being three wide for a capacity of 12 heads of lettuce. Each discrete lettuce receiving cell in the tray is defined by four semirigid, flexible sides, which sides extend downwardly and inwardly, are elastically biased and form an inverted pyramid-like profile truncated at an open bottom. The lettuce head holding tray is loaded at a picking station and conveyed to a packing station. When the lettuce head holding tray arrives at the packing station, a packing apparatus having discrete plungers--one for each cell--unloads the tray overlying a box to be packed. A first loaded lettuce holding tray with lettuce stems downwardly placed packs the lower layer of a box. A second lettuce holding tray with the lettuce stems exposed to the side corner of the cells packs the upper layer of a box. In each case, the lettuce of each layer moves as a mass into the lettuce box with no relative movement between the discrete side by side lettuce heads of a single layer.

Lettuce packer

A machine for transplanting soil plugs with great uniformity and a minimum of manual labor comprising a conveyor having a plurality of soil plug gripping mechanisms mounted thereto, a furrow opening device, and a furrow closing device. The furrow closing device of the present invention is preferably defined by portions of a bed shaper that operates to form the soil into a trapezoidal planting bed. In addition to the normal function of shaping the bed, the bed shaper establishes a ground level with respect to which the plugs are planted, while the rear portions of the bed shaper act to close the furrow, and include adjustable tabs that may be set to control the timing of the closure relative to the plug positioning. Each plug gripping assembly preferably comprises a center opening clip having opposed resilient fingers. The conveyor path is characterized by a lower horizontal path portion that maintains the plugs at the proper planting depth for a significant interval so that the soil may be properly closed around the plugs before the plugs are released.

Growing community of inventors

Salinas, CA, United States of America

Javier Diaz-Infante