Plant husbandry – Water culture – apparatus or method – Cultivating chamber
Reexamination Certificate
1997-10-10
2001-11-06
Poon, Peter M. (Department: 3643)
Plant husbandry
Water culture, apparatus or method
Cultivating chamber
Reexamination Certificate
active
06311430
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF INVENTION
This invention relates in improvements of growing mung and soya bean sprouts and in the transportation from the growing room to the processing area in a highly efficient way.
The lack in good designed mung and soya sprouts growing system not only results in poor quality and low yields in produce but also increases the labour and space cost.
There have been some proposals being invented to cultivate seeds such as alfalfas and some vegetables effectively but it has proven non-effective to the cultivation of mung and soya sprouts.This is due to the difference in requirements to grow and in the aims to achieve.
The disadvantage of mung and soya sprouts cultivated by these proposed systems produces a green coloured, small sized and low yielded sprouts. These are an effect of the proposed common growth designs which allow the light to effect the growth, sprays water to wet the seeds, cultivation of thin layered sprouts, sloped water drainage setting and ample air circulation problems.
Another disadvantage is the increased labour cost due to the common structure design of multistacked containers, trays, multipallets and the fixed bottom walls of the containers, trays and pallets.
This design results in multiple times to lay the seeds, stackup and unstack containers, movement of trays and pallets in and out from the cabinet and growing room. After the growth of sprouts there are multiple times of cleaning each of the containers, tray, and pallet for re-use.
Furthermore it increases the cost of space due to the high density cultivation requirement of mung and soya sprouts where the previous proposed designs are for low density cultivation only which means a larger space area is required to meet the same production output than this present proposal.
These problems are overcome by the present invention which provides a super efficiency sprouts growing system specified for mung and soya beans only. This invention comprises two big cultivation containers for the seeds, fixed on a metal frame above a water conveyer tank in a fixed location inside a growing room.
In one form of this invention there consists a light stopping material to construct the container where the sprouts will not be affected by light to make it a green colour, but of a white colour. The size of the open top container are of equal width and height and is capable of growing over 400 kg of sprouts at a time.
With the open top container a designed quantity of seeds are easily loaded by a pump during seed loading and the loading of irrigation water from another outlet from a water pump during watering.
With the equal size width and height of the container a very thick layer of seeds during cultivation would further stop any light to effect the growing seeds, which also creates a high density moisture condition for maximum absorption by the seeds, therefore a better sized sprout and colour would be achieved during harvesting.
Due to the quality of this produce of bigger sized and a better colour of snowwhite, it would increase the production weight ratio from seeds to sprouts. At the same time it minimises the labour cost for multiple times of laying seeds in small containers, trays and pallets, stacking and unstacking containers, moving of trays into the cabin or moving pallets to the growing room of the previous proposals.
With the level setting of containers it allows a big volume of water from a fixed water outlet above the containers to flood the growing area to create the maximum absorption condition for the mung and soya beans growth requirements to achieve the maximum growth.
With the short setting between the two containers and the water conveyer tank there is a minimal circulation space, further achieving the condition of slow absorption of high density moisture to grow better sized sprouts.
Another formation of this container is the bottom wall is not a fixed wall but a releaseable wall. When it is closed it forms the bottom wall to support the weight of the seeds or sprouts during growing and also supports the weight of water during watering time. When it is released it forms an open space at the harvesting time allowing the sprouts to fall down to the water conveyer tank as the first stage in transporting the sprouts.
With the perforated holes smaller then seed size in the releaseable bottom wall in no designated location it forms the passage to drain the water from the top container to the bottom container, then drains out through the water conveyer tank during watering time.
There is a full size plate with holes smaller then seed size covering the top of the seed bed to assist the even growth and the stabilising condition of seeds during watering times, and also to reduce the light on the seed bed during opening and closing of the growing room door. The plate also reduces the rate of moisture evaporation from the sprouts further creating a better growing condition means a guarantee of the quality of produce.
In another form of this invention there is a water conveyer tank situated under the two containers that form a pool of water extending to the outside of the growing room for the retrieval of the sprouts. This is essential to this invention.
At the location under the containers, water pressure jets are mounted on the water conveyer tanks side walls in the direction whereby the sprouts would be propelled outside of the growing room.
The water pressure jets would of course be connected by pipe work to an electrical pump.
(May not be seen in drawing) When the water conveyer tank is filled with water and the pressure jets are activated by the pump, water movement is created towards the other end of the tank. The transportation of the sprouts from the location under the containers to the outside of the growing room is accomplished when the sprouts are dropped into the water conveyer tank and are carried by the water movement. The sprouts are then picked up by a conveyer belt and transported to the processing area.
The end result of this applied system is the further minimising in the cost of labour, preventing the necessities to unstack the containers and the moving of trays from the cabinet or moving the pallets from the growing room for the harvesting of sprouts as of previous proposals.
As you can see, a very limited requirement of space is required of this invention to achieve a large quantity of produce output.
This invention further maximises the usage of space per production ratio compared to the previous proposals requiring so much air space between the setting of the containers, trays and pallets and the space requirement of each individual container, trays and pallets to produce a low ratio of sprouts, but requiring a greater area of space.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4057930 (1977-11-01), Barham
patent: 4144671 (1979-03-01), Lee
patent: 4289614 (1981-09-01), Suzuki
patent: 4951415 (1990-08-01), Kawarabayashi et al.
patent: 5042195 (1991-08-01), Lee et al.
patent: 08220617A (1985-05-01), None
patent: 08098632A (1996-04-01), None
patent: 08140478A (1996-06-01), None
Freiburger Thomas M.
Gellner Jeffrey L.
Poon Peter M.
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