How to Get More Plants in the Same Space

Most of our injection molded plastic propagation trays and containers are aimed at replacing an equivalently sized Styrofoam tray with a tray that has more cells in it without compromising on plant quality. Very similar plant quality but more plants means a lower plant cost. And this, therefore, means higher profits and better return on investment. There are numerous more benefits to plastic propagation trays – find out more on our Plastic v Styrofoam page.

While Sytrofoam is very light, it is also very weak. This means that Styrofoam trays need a large outer rim and thick cell walls to keep the tray rigid and strong enough to survive in a nursery. This thick outer rim, however, is wasted space. In a large nursery this can mean hundreds, if not thousands, of square feet are lost to Styrofoam, rather than plants. Injection molded trays are inherently stronger and don’t need this rim, nor thick cell walls, to keep everything rigid and secure.

This means that the cells can be moved or spaced out to the very edge of the tray so you have more space between plants and bigger cells. On our 200 cell vegetable tray, for example, the injection molded tray allows for about 5% more space between plants by simply getting rid of this outer rim.

Another option is to keep the cells roughly the same size, but add more cells.

We introduced both 240 and 242 cell trays to replace the 200 cell Styrofoam tray and a 162 tray to replace the 128 with this logic in mind. These trays have 20% more plants per tray and the plants are only 5% closer. As the plants are only ever so slightly closer, plant quality remains very high. In fact, with the other benefits of a plastic tray with Proptek’s unique root technology, plants are quite often better than in a bigger celled Styrofoam tray. This means you can reduce plant production costs without reducing plant quality.

More numerous, better quality plants that are quick and easy to extract year after year all means more profit for you, the grower.