Plant protecting and regulating compositions – Plant growth regulating compositions – Plural active ingredients
Reexamination Certificate
2000-02-28
2001-09-04
Clardy, S. Mark (Department: 1616)
Plant protecting and regulating compositions
Plant growth regulating compositions
Plural active ingredients
C504S292000, C504S299000, C071S061000, C071S062000, C071S063000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06284709
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a composition for stimulating plant growth and for improving plant preservation. More particularly, the present invention relates to a composition based on alkaline earth ionized minerals, which has functions of stimulating plant growth, improving vegetable preservation, building up vegetable disease endurance, inhibiting bacterial propagation and improving soil fertility with safety to the body.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Recent aggravation of air pollution and soil pollution has rapidly acidified growth conditions of plants. Also, such pollution seriously inhibits the growth and activity of microbes that inhabit soils, resulting in a significant decrease of soil fertility.
In addition, overuse of agricultural chemicals causes serious medical and social problems. For example, in Korea, hundreds of farmers are directly poisoned causing significant health problems or even resulting in death by agricultural chemicals. What is worse, a multitude of consumers are also threatened by the agricultural products contaminated with chemicals. In fact, nowadays, the agricultural products, which are usually eaten, are frequently reported to be sold at markets while being contaminated with chemicals. Further, contamination of streams with agricultural products destructive to their ecosystems, causing pollution-related diseases.
Referring to a survey of the Korea Consumer Protection Board, methyl thiophene was detected at an amount of 0.2-7.7 ppm in some bean sprouts which were sold unpacked in Korea. This agricultural chemical is a precursor of cabendazim, a compound of carcinogenicity and teratogenicity. That is, a modified form of methyl thiophene may cause cancers or childbirth abnormalities. Thiophanate methyl is a main ingredient of Homai, an agricultural chemical which is typically used to wash various seeds, such as rice seeds, onion seeds, bean seeds, sesame seeds, before seeding. However, thiophanate methyl is legally prohibited from being used for the cultivation of bean sprouts as it is decomposed into cabendazim by the metabolism of bean sprouts themselves. Because Homai can prevent the putrefaction and discoloration of bean sprouts during their cultivation in addition to washing the seeds, it may be used before seeding and during cultivation.
Typical factors to shorten distribution periods of agricultural products include microbe-causing putrefaction, oxidization, and enzyme-causing quality degradation. Thus, to improve the preservation of agricultural products, antimicrobial agents and/or antioxidants are employed. As a result of such synthesis chemicals, including antimicrobial chemicals and growth-stimulating chemicals, it is not too much to say that almost all of the foods people usually eats are contaminated with agricultural chemicals.
Nutritionally comparing with meats, beans are rich in proteins and lipids. In particular, bean sprouts, which are germinated from beans, are a very popular food material and serve as a nutrition source in Korea. During the cultivation of bean sprouts, treatment with growth-stimulating agents reduces their average height by about 35% while making their hypocotyl parts thicker by about 40%. Such chemocultivation of bean sprouts, however, suffers from a serious problem in that chemicals remain in the food and thus, threaten the health of the consumers.
In order to solve such problems, various seed germination and plant growth stimulants of low toxicity have been developed. For instance, Korean Pat. Laid-Open Publication No. 95-702387 suggests laminarin as a stimulating agent for seed germination and plant growth. In Korean Pat. Laid-Open Publication No. 84-3383, there is disclosed a plant growth controlling agent which comprises at least one substituted naphthalene in addition to 1,4- and 1,6-dimethyl naphthalene, and an inert carrier or diluent. Another plant growth controlling agent can be referred to Korean Pat. Laid-Open Publication No. 88-12159 in which dialkylimidazolyl phosphate and dialkylimidazolyltetraraphosphoate are used as main ingredients. These compounds disclosed in the above-cited references, however, are synthetic compounds which cannot guarantee their safety to the human body. Korean Pat. Laid-Open Publication discloses a composition comprising elvan, phosphorite, glauconite and magnesite, asserting that it acts to improve soil fertility and stimulate plant growth. However, this composition is poor in such effects.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Leading to the present invention, the extensive and thorough research on an agent for improving the growth and preservation of plants, repeated by the present inventors aiming to apply the agent to vegetables with safety to the body, resulted in the finding that an ionized combination of potassium compounds, sodium compounds and silicon compounds can stimulate the growth of plants as well as extend the preservation of vegetables without producing any toxicity to the human body. In addition, this stimulative and preservative agent was found to improve the texture senses and thus, the food value of vegetables. Consequently, this agent guarantees safe agricultural products with economical lucrativeness.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an alkaline earth ionized mineral composition which is safe to the body and has functions of stimulating plant growth, improving vegetable preservation, building up vegetable disease endurance, inhibiting bacterial propagation and improving soil fertility.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for preparing the composition.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide the use of the composition in improving the growth and the preservation of bean plants.
In an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a composition for stimulating plant growth and for improving vegetable preservation, comprising per liter of distilled water: 2.25-5.13 moles of potassium silicate; 0.25-0.57 moles of a compound selected from the group consisting of sodium silicate, sodium hydroxy silicate and the mixture thereof; 1.98-5.59 moles of potassium carbonate; 0.22-0.51 moles of a compound selected from the group consisting of sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate and the mixture thereof; 0.25-0.75 moles of potassium chloride; and 0.45-0.84 moles of a reducing sugar.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for preparing the composition, comprising the steps of: solubilizing the above components at predetermined amounts in 1 liter of distilled water maintained at 80-90° C. through a sol-gel process; stirring the solution under the inflow of air while reducing the temperature of the solution to 18-22° C. at a rate of 4-6° C. per min; and allowing the resulting sol-gel phase to stand at room temperature for 24-36 hours.
In accordance with a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided the use of the composition in improving the growth and the preservation of bean plants, leaf vegetables and fruit vegetables, in which the composition is used at an amount of 0.1 to 0.3%.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
In the present invention, a combination of potassium silicate; sodium silicate and/or sodium hydroxy silicate; potassium carbonate; sodium carbonate and/or sodium bicarbonate; potassium chloride; and a reducing sugar is used as a composition for stimulating the growth of plants and for extending the preservation of vegetables.
When being applied to vegetables, potassium silicate makes their roots, stems and leaves healthy and thus, builds up the disease endurance of the vegetables. For soils, potassium silicate is added as a factor for controlling a cation mineral metabolism. It is preferably used at an amount of 2.25-5.13 moles per liter of distilled water. For instance, if potassium silicate is used at less than 2.25 moles, the agent performs insufficient functions in building up the disease endurance of the vegetables and controlling their cation mineral metabolisms. On the other hand, when
Ju Jong Gon
Koh Jong Ho
Yi Woong Whan
Clardy S. Mark
McDermott & Will & Emery
Nel Biotech Co., Ltd.
LandOfFree
Composition for stimulating plant growth and for improving... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Composition for stimulating plant growth and for improving..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Composition for stimulating plant growth and for improving... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2495170