Vacuum Seed Sowing Manifold: a novel device for high-throughput sowing of Arabidopsis seeds

The small size of Arabidopsis provides both opportunities and difficulties for laboratory research. Large numbers of plants can be grown in a relatively small area making it easy to observe and investigate interesting phenotypes. Conversely, their small size can also make it difficult to obtain large quantities of tissue for investigation using modern molecular techniques. Sowing large numbers of their seed can overcome this; however, their small seed size makes this difficult. Here we present the Vacuum Seed Sowing Manifold (VSSM), a simple device that can be printed using a 3D printer and provides a new high throughput method to sow large numbers of seeds at a range of densities.