A plastic tray hitting the market this week could make a big improvement in how tobacco growers start their plants.
Farmers have been germinating their tobacco seedlings in hydroponic greenhouses for about 30 years. The plants grow in foam trays made of expanded polystyrene that float on water. The plants are transplanted to the field when the weather gets warm.
But the foam trays degrade quickly and are hard to clean, leaving many in the industry, including Chuck Miglianti, looking for a better product.
A founder of Florida-based BeltWide Inc., Miglianti has spent more than 10 years working on a better tray, including the past three developing the Trilogy tray.
The new tray is made of a hard plastic, polypropylene, and was delivered to growers for the first time on Wednesday. [This is the result of an evolution," Miglianti said.
Designing something as simple as a tray has proved challenging for the industry.
[We`ve had plastic trays before, but they did not float," said T. David Reed, a Virginia Tech researcher who tested the tray last year.
Foam floats because it is lighter than water, but polypropylene is heavier than water. The foam trays weigh about three-quarters of a pound, while the Trilogy trays weigh about 2 1/2 pounds, Miglianti said.
To make the new trays float, Miglianti added a matrix of air support chambers on the underside of the tray that trap air as the tray is placed in the water.
The new trays should also get rid of an unofficial problem called [old tray syndrome."
That is when a grower does not know what is wrong with a tray of plants, but if the tray is replaced, the problem will go away, Miglianti said.
The current foam trays are made of tiny beads mashed together. In time, gaps develop in the foam where diseases and roots can penetrate. [It`s very difficult for us to clean that effectively," Reed said.
Steam sterilization is the most common cleaning method. Methyl bromide fumigation is also effective, but it does not work for most growers, he said.
Reed said his flue-cured tobacco growers in Virginia spend 25 cents a tray on cleaning.
Miglianti`s trays do not have large pores that harbor disease, so they basically just need to be hosed off, Reed said.
The foam trays have a useful lifespan of about four years. They are not recyclable and not good to burn, Reed said.
The U.S. tobacco industry uses something like 20 million foam trays, which is a lot of nonrecyclable waste to be making every few years, Miglianti said.
The new plastic trays are made from recycled plastic and are themselves recyclable, but don`t expect to replace them all that often. They should last more than 20 years, Reed said.
[It`s going to save a lot of landfill space," Miglianti said.
The new trays should also alleviate problems with chunks of tray getting into the finished bales, which is a problem with the less sturdy foam trays.
Buyers don`t like nontobacco-related material, or NTRM, getting mixed into the bales, Reed said.
A few nuances of Miglianti`s design also should help farmers.
The polypropylene trays fit through current seeding lines designed for the foam trays, so there is no need to change equipment, Reed said.
Ribs inside the cell have been shown to promote additional root growth, Miglianti said.
The Trilogy tray itself is pretty simple, but there are good reasons it has taken so long to produce an improvement on the foam trays.
The tobacco industry is steeped in tradition, and developing a new product is a big financial risk, Miglianti said.
Still, the trays are drawing [tremendously good interest" and are already sold out for this year, Miglianti said.
Reed, too, said growers are interested in the trays, though the rollout will be on [a limited trial basis" this year, with not more than 200,000 being made.
The trays will first head to Southern states like Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia, but they will also be available in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and the other tobacco-growing states [so that everyone kind of gets a taste of the tray," Miglianti said.
Beiler`s Greenhouse Structures in Paradise is BeltWide`s Pennsylvania distributor.
If all goes as planned, Miglianti said, production of the Trilogy tray will triple next year.
Despite a purchase price 2 1/2 times that of a foam tray, the new trays should actually be cheaper in the long run because they last so much longer, are easier to clean and will not harbor diseases, Miglianti said.