Plant husbandry – Coated or impregnated seed – method or apparatus
Patent
1997-01-10
1998-09-01
Wax, Robert A.
Plant husbandry
Coated or impregnated seed, method or apparatus
47 58, 47 73, 47 74, 47 77, 47DIG9, 47DIG4, 424456, 424473, 424478, 435177, 435180, 800200, C01C 106, A01B 7900, A01G 2302, A01G 100
Patent
active
057994390
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to protective enclosures for seeds, for providing a self-contained environment for protecting the seeds in their early growth stages in arid or hostile environments.
In many countries around the world there has been significant land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors such as climatic variations and human activities. The degradation process, often the product of human pressure on land resources, begins with the loss of natural vegetation cover and results in the nutrient-rich surface layers of the exposed soil being washed away. The remaining soils are nutrient deficient, becoming compacted with a much reduced water holding capacity.
Plant re-seeding and establishment is extremely difficult in such vulnerable soils, but is vital in staving off the increase of famine in such areas. The replacement of ground cover with shrubs and grasses as well as trees will serve to bind and stablise vulnerable soils, thus benefiting both soil and water conservation schemes. Local people will in the long term thus benefit from increase in food, water, fuel and shelter.
Conventionally, it has been possible to irrigate large tracks of land by diverting or damming main river systems using intrusive engineering work. Environmentalists have expressed serious reservations, however, over the negative impact of such schemes on local and downstream ecosystems and human populations. Many development organisations now utilise microdams to provide a water conservation mechanism which limits any negative environmental impact. However, the cost of such systems is extremely high.
In desertified regions, the sparsity of vegetation cover in dam catchment areas is leading to severe siltation problems due to soil erosion, which also threatens the efficiency of the essential irrigation schemes.
Another solution is to provide underground perforated irrigation pipes, but the expense of this is prohibitive in many areas which require irrigation badly.
Other schemes have been attempted, whereby a super-absorbent material has been ploughed into topsoil and mixed therewith to permit cultivation of plants by increasing the water-holding capacity of the soil. This was a development from known domestic uses of water holding gels. The lack of protection from the sun, however, leads to evaporation in low humidity atmospheric conditions and possible damage to the seeds. These schemes are only really successful where there is a substantial regular water supply, although they are of benefit in extending the interval between irrigation treatments.
It is accepted that irrigation and fertilisation of newly planted plants can have dramatic effects on root growth.
The invention therefore aims to solve the problems of successfully ensuring plant growth in arid regions by providing seeds with protective enclosures, which provide a micro-environment for survival and growth in hostile conditions, which is inexpensive to manufacture and which has the flexibility to facilitate distribution by a wide number of methods.
According to the invention there is provided a protective enclosure for one or more seeds comprising an outer shell, said shell being liquid-impermeable in at least one direction, and an hydrophilic absorbent material contained within the shell surrounding at least one seed, said absorbent material being capable of absorbing and storing liquid.
There will now be described, by way of example only, preferred embodiments of the invention with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
FIG. 1 shows a front elevation of a seed enclosure according to the invention;
FIG. 1a shows a cross-sectional plan view of the seed enclosure of FIG. 1 on the line 1a--1a;
FIG. 2 shows a plan view of an alternative seed enclosure according to the invention;
FIG. 3 is a side elevation of the seed enclosure of FIG. 2; and
FIG. 4 is a side elevation of a further alternative embodiment of a seed enclosure according to the invention.
Referring to FIGS. 1 and la there is shown a seed enclosure 10. As can
REFERENCES:
patent: 4645698 (1987-02-01), Matsubara
patent: 4908315 (1990-03-01), Kertz
patent: 5250082 (1993-10-01), Teng et al.
Desert Bloom Foundation
Saidha Tekchand
Wax Robert A.
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