1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to agricultural cultivating equipment, and more particularly to automatic agricultural cultivating equipment including a loading unit rotatable about a vertical axis.
2. Description of the Related Art
Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, conventional agricultural cultivating equipment disclosed in Taiwanese Utility Model Republication No. M417868 is used for cultivating and producing crops. The conventional agricultural cultivating equipment includes two spaced-apart primary supports 12, two secondary supports 12 disposed respectively at left and right sides of an assembly of the main supports 11, a plurality of flowerpots 13 (only one is shown in FIG. 1) hung on the secondary supports 12, two water collecting reservoirs 14 each disposed under a vertical row of the flowerpots 13, two water pumps 15 (only one is shown in FIG. 1) disposed respectively in the water collecting reservoirs 14, a plurality of lighting members 16 disposed between the primary supports 11, a light transmissive plate 17 disposed on and above the main supports 11 and the secondary supports 12, a light reflecting plate 18 connected to bottom ends of the main plates 11 and the secondary plates 12, and two water conduits 19 (only one is shown in FIG. 1) connected respectively to the pumps 15.
During watering, the pumps 15 are operated to draw water from the water collecting reservoirs 14. Hence, the water flows through the water conduits 19 into the uppermost flowerpots 13, and drop into the remaining flowerpots 13. When the lowermost flowerpots 13 are filled with water, redundant water flows from discharge holes (not shown) in bottom ends of the lowermost flower pots 13 into the water collecting reservoirs 14. To light the crops, the lighting members 15 are actuated, and sunlight is emitted onto the flowerpots 13 through the light transmissive plate 17. In addition, the light emitted from the lighting members 15 and the sunlight passing through the light transmissive plate 17 onto the light reflecting plate 18 can be reflected by the light reflecting plate 18. As such, a space defined between the primary supports 11 and between the secondary plates 12 is full of light.
By hanging the flowerpots 13 on the secondary supports 12, the aforesaid conventional agricultural cultivating equipment is suitable for mass production. However, since water flows from the uppermost flowerpots 13 into the lowermost flowerpots 13, the conventional agricultural cultivating equipment suffers from the following disadvantages:    (1) When water drops along the flowerpots 13, distribution of water in the flowerpots 13 is non-uniform. For example, since water flows continuously through the cultivating soil in the uppermost flowerpots 13, the cultivating soil in the uppermost flowerpots 13 lacks sufficient nutrient, and redundant fertilizer and metabolite are accumulated eventually within the lowermost flowerpots 13, which is harmful to the crops in the lowermost flowerpots 13.    (2) It is necessary for the user to move frequently between the primary supports 11 and between the secondary supports 12, thereby resulting in consumption in time and manpower.    (3) It is difficult to manage and harvest the crops in the flowerpots 13 disposed on upper end portions of the secondary supports 12.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds