The trend in the processing tomato industry is the use of locally-grown media block seedlings (tray plants) in place of bare-root seedlings imported from Georgia. The purpose of the investigation described here was to compare the cost of labour and other inputs for transplanting bare-root and tray-grown plants using systems presently available. The information was gathered in Southern Ontario during the 1987 season. The findings from the field included: 1. Planting tray plants with cup-type machine increased the average operator rate 2.3 times. 2. Conventional machines were spend 61% of their field time planting and cup-type machines using tray plants achieved 73.5% actual planting time.3.All planters placed plants accurately in the soil at the expected placings. 4. Tray-pants survived well, 3 weeks after being transplanted they showed a loss of 4.6% compared to 13.7% for bare-root plants.5. Seedlings represent the greatest direct cost of transplanting processing tomatoes at $629/ha. Labour costs amounted to $156/ha for bare-root transplanting and $83/ha for tray plants.