Mechanization and materials handling basics

摘要

Many growers who have adopted energy conservation and heating fuel alternatives during the last several years have realized significant savings. But still the largest cost in plant production is labor. Equal or greater savings can be obtained by incorporating material-handling techniques and mechanization into a growing operation. A good starting point for evaluating labor efficiency is to collect data on which operations require the greatest amount of time. Container filling, transplanting, hand watering, container spacing and plant selection for shipping require some of the greatest use of labor. These tasks are the ones that should be evaluated first for improvements.