out of place on American vegetable farms – which they assumed were all extremely large and only using largescale equipment. They did not know about the burgeoning market-farm and local food trends. Sixteen years later, the paper chain pot transplanter is now widely used on market farms across the nation.
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FINALIZED NOP RULING COMING SOON ON PAPER POT TRANSPLANTERS
PHOTO: THE PAPER POT CHAIN SYSTEM WAS ORIGINALLY DEVELOPED IN JAPAN. PHOTO CREDIT: JOHN HENDRICKSON.
by JOHN HENDRICKSON
A
nyone managing a diversified vegetable or flower farm knows that tools and equipment play an important role in making operations efficient and profitable. In recent years, there have been many developments to make various tasks quicker and easier on the body for vegetable and flower farmers such as: greens harvesters; innovative attachments for wheel hoes; steerable, tractor-drawn finger weeders; an expanding fleet of two-wheel tractor attachments; various innovations in hoophouse design and production, and new versions of the classic rear-engine cultivating tractor. One of the most revolutionary developments in appropriate technology for small and medium scale farms is the paper chain pot transplanter. (Full disclosure: the author of this article sells the paper pot transplanting system after discovering it in Japan and becoming the first farmer to use paper chain pots in North America in 2006.)
ORGANIC BROADCASTER | 8
The paper chain pot transplanting system is a unique, ingenious, and highly efficient means to transplant vegetables, flowers, and herbs. It is unlike any other transplanter used in the U.S. or Europe. It has no motor and is pulled by hand. It allows a single person to transplant hundreds of plants in less than a minute. This is accomplished while standing upright and eliminates countless hours spent kneeling, crawling, or stooping. The system relies on planting into paper pots that are connected in a chain. Because the pots are in a chain, they feed themselves through the transplanter and into a furrow created by the transplanter and then the transplanter closes the furrow.
Elegant small farm ingenuity from Japan Nitten (pronounced “knee-Ten”), the Japanese company that invented the system about 40 years ago, was skeptical about whether their Chainpots would take hold in the U.S., having the impression that their little “Pull-Boy” (the original Japanese name for the transplanter) would be
The Chainpot system excels at transplanting closely-spaced crops such onions, leeks, scallions, shallots, salad greens, lettuce, Salanova, spinach, kohlrabi, peas, beans, cilantro, dill, as well as a host of different cut flowers. It can also be used to transplant root crops such as beets, turnips, radishes, and even carrots (although the latter is a bit tricky). The paper chains are currently available in two-inch, fourinch, and six-inch in-row spacing to accommodate the needs of different crops. By seeding into every other cell (or via thinning), farmers can also plant crops that require more space such as broccoli, cabbage, and kale. A new Chainpot is being introduced later in 2022 that has 12-inch spacing – making the skipping of cells unnecessary. Less common uses of the system include crops such as corn and garlic. The paper pots are a consumable input as they go into the ground at planting and eventually decompose. The small size of paper chain pot cells (1.25 by 1.25 inches) and the short in-row spacings make the system unsuitable for crops such as tomatoes, peppers, squash, or any other large transplant that needs wider spacing in the field. Nitten does also make non-chain paper pots that are an excellent option instead of using 1020 style trays. These pull apart and can be transplanted by hand or via a tractor-drawn transplanter. Like their chain pot cousins, these can go right into the field to decompose and utilize the same type of nursery tray. The non-chain paper pots are quite similar
