Cut the trays themselves up into strips or sections.

To get the seedlings out of the cells I don't attempt to dig them out. Squeeze the cell in your fingers to loosen the sides. Then partially invert into your hand. If the seedling is well grown it will turn out like a sand castle.

This is the reason I use the smallest containers I can find and then put those containers in a tray. It's more time per planting but at least you can always keep adding or subtracting seedlings.

Those cell paks fit neatly together in the trays and you can move them around to suit their growth needs as time goes on. Putting different seeds in one tray is asking for a lot of work and trouble.

Thanks everyone! I'm going to try all of these!

Greetings,

(check out my response=***)

I don't like to start seeds en masse, I like to use seedling trays. But since I don't always want 72 plants of whatever, I will start several different kinds in one tray. And of course they don't all come up on the same schedule, so when it's time to pot on one kind, the others are still too small. And since the trays are flexible, getting out the ones I want can negatively affect the ones I want to leave to grow a bit longer before potting.
****I have tried this in the past with no success. I made an microsoft excel spread sheet with all kinds of data and observations. in the end space, light, water requirements were too much for me to deal with and lost all 72.

Yes, I could just plant partial trays, but that runs into space issues.

So I've tried spoons, knives, chopsticks and plant labels as tools, but am not satisfied with how they work. What do you all use?
*** I have tried many labeling techniques but the only one that seems to work for me is just growing one item per tray. In the end I dont use all 72 that germinate but the 10- 20 seedlings i keep are of high quality.

I hope my experience can assist you. I couldnt really find a good labeling technique when dealing with many varieties. Cheers!