About used Soil & peat blocking machines

Soil blocking machine are used for making moulded plant plugs. These small pressed clumps of soil are used for raising flower or vegetable seeds such as lettuces and endives. A soil blocking machine does not actually make little pots, but small lumps of earth pressed together into a plug. By pressing the soil together, the plug remains intact and makes it easy to handle.

How the soil block pressing machine works

The soil block press squeezes together moist compost into small cubes of the desired size by means of moulding blocks. It is important for the pressing operation that the soil mixture is properly moistened. The soil mixture consists of potting compost and sand. In order to obtain the correct mixture, a compost mixer and/or a soil moisturiser is often used in combination with a soil blocking press. By changing the blocks various sizes of compost clumps can be made. The compacted soil clumps are drilled to make a hole for seeding and to make repotting easy. Depending on the type of soil block press, the plugs are automatically deposited by a dispensing rake from the machine into the ground or onto trays.With each different stamp comes a different size soil block, which in turn is used in different crops, below you can see an overview, which size soil block is available for which crop:

• 3.8 x 3.8 cm or 4 x 4 cm soil blocks; commonly used for lettuce, endive and various brassicas
• 4.5 x 4.5 cm or 5 x 5 cm soil blocks; usually used for beans, mangetout and tomatoes
• Larger soil blocks, for example 10 x 10 cm; are usually used for aubergines, peppers, pumpkins, courgettes, cucumbers and also tomatoes.

To create good soil blocks, fine seed compost with the right moisture content is essential.

It is possible to equip the soil block pressing machine with different types of seeders, such as a drum seederseeders, tilting and sliding seeders. Which machine is suitable for you depends on the type of seed. For example the tilting and the sliding seeders are used for spherical seeds like cabbage seeds and pelleted seeds. Drum seeders can sow virtually all types of vegetable and sunflower seeds.

The used soil blocking machines from Visser, Demtec (Dewa) and Flier which Duijndam Machines have currently on offer are all listed in the summary below. Our experienced and expert staff will be very pleased to help and advise you to find the most suitable previously used soil block pressing machines for you.