Transplanting has been one of the most labor-intensive operations involved in tobacco production in Japan. With the conventional manually-fed transplanter, the seedling feed operation limits the working rates and gives the main causes of high labor intensity for the operator. Consequently, researches were initiated to automate the seedling feed operation. The newly developed automatic transplanter is assumed to be utilized under the conventional cultural conditions in Japan, that is, growing the seedlings in vinyl trays(pots), and transplanting them to plastic-mulched ridges in the field. However, the seedling feed mechanism of this machine could be applied to other cultural conditions and crops, only if the seedlings are produced in the vinyl trays specially designed for the automatic transplanter. Two kinds of the automatic transplanters, walking type and riding type, are available. These automatic transplanters work at a rate which is 3-4 times as high as manuall y-fed transplanters and show good accuracy in the field operation. Furthermore, these machines can be operated easily and comfortably by only one operator. As the special tray consists of 112 individual pots which are smaller than those of conventional use, labor-saving and material-saving at the production of seedlings were also achieved. In the field tests at our pilot farms in 1985-1986, the seedling producing-transplanting system, in which the seedlings were produced without conventional preliminary transplanting from the pelleted seeds sown one by one in the pots of vinyl trays and transplanted by the machine, showed remarkable labor-saving effects.