Chemistry: fertilizers – Processes and products – Organic material-containing
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-20
2003-02-11
Griffin, Steven P. (Department: 1760)
Chemistry: fertilizers
Processes and products
Organic material-containing
C071S024000, C071S064050, C071S903000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06517600
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to an enhanced pure organic fertilizer, and to a process for converting composted organic material produced by optimized composting procedures into enhanced organic fertilizer for agronomic and other uses.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The successful production of plants, including crops, flowers, young tree saplings and the like, involves optimizing the soil fertility in order to produce growth and maturity. It is also desirable to maintain soil fertility and structure over long periods of time. Animal manures have been used as nutrient sources since ancient times; the use of animal manures also provides good soil tilth and structure. The disadvantage, however, is animal manures have relatively low nutrient value, include non-stabilized forms of plant nutrients prone to leaching and, if the manure is applied raw, the soil will have to provide nutrients for the micro-organisms involved in the manure breakdown process. This can lead to a nutrient deficiency in the soil for a crop planted in it.
Soil fertility involves a complex series of interactions of the numerous components in the soil, including physical, chemical, and hydrological processes and phenomena. Attaining agronomic benefit from the application of compost based fertilizers to croplands requires a compost product that interacts beneficially with all of the physical, chemical and biological processes and phenomena going on in the soil. The factors influencing soil fertility include soil pH, the form of the available resident nutrients, temperature, moisture content, soil atmosphere and the microbial populations that are present. The incorporation of compost into soil can influence all of these factors. The indiscriminate addition of low quality compost to croplands can be counter productive, and can result in soil fertility problems.
The majority of fertilizers applied to croplands in North America for crop production are chemical or mineral fertilizers, or a combination of these. Mineral fertilizers tend to be simple mineral salts of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, such as ammonium nitrate, and potassium phosphate. Synthetic chemical fertilizers cannot normally be used in certified organic food production.
Composting is a common process used to recycle organic wastes. The composting process reduces the volume of organic material and stabilizes potential nutrients in the compost, particularly nitrogen. Composting curtails environmental pollution and reduces, often significantly, the amount of recyclable organic matter requiring another method of disposal, which often is to dump it into a landfill site. During the composting process, the carbon and nitrogen containing compounds in the organic materials are transformed by successive microbial populations into more stable complex forms which chemically and biologically resemble humic substances.
The commercial viability of existing composting facilities is primarily based on the operator receiving a fee for accepting the organic material from waste generators. The emphasis in most of these waste management composting facilities is the composting of large volumes of material to reduce the amount of material. The retention time in the composting channels or windrows is minimized to allow the maximum flow through. Sometimes the compost is allowed to cure outside the composting system to complete the bio-stabilization process. Little effort is made to maximize the quality of the compost.
The development of compost fertilizer to minimize the volume of waste organic material going to landfill sites has resulted in substantial quantities of compost becoming available for cropland application. Not all of this compost material is suitable for certified organic farming. This invention seeks to provide a multi-step process in which the quality of organic compost applied to farmland is maximized, so that the organic compost provides as much benefit as can reasonably be achieved to the farmland.
Dick and McCoy, in “Enhancing Soil Fertility by Addition of Compost”, 1993 Science and Engineering of Composting, Design, Environmental, Microbial and Utilization Aspects, Renaissance Publications, Ohio, USA, summarize the advantages and disadvantages of compost and mineral fertilizers.
TABLE 1
Comparison of Mineral Salts and Compost
Material
Advantage
Disadvantage
Mineral Salt
convenient
leached easily and low
efficiency
lower transpotatopm
continuous use may lead
and handling costs
to soil structure
breakdown and diffuse
water pollution
quick crop response
supplies only major
nutrients
Compost
improve soil
dilute nutrient source
structure
controls erosion
high transport and
handling cost
supplies wide range
may be difficult to
of nutrients
apply
hygienic disposal of
high C/N ratios may
pathogenic waste
rob soil N
The scientific literature records numerous positive crop yields from the application of compost as a fertilizer to farmland. Where yield decreases have been reported they can generally be attributed to the application of immature compost where the bio-stabilization process is incomplete. The addition of immature compost to soil can result in soil nitrogen being utilized to complete the bio-stabilization process.
In recent years there has been a continuous growth in developed countries in the production of food crops by certified organic crop production processes. The governments of both Canada and the United States are developing standards for labelling food products as “organically produced”, and several certifying agencies exist to certify farms and market gardens as “organic”. The concept underpinning “organic” food crop production is the elimination of the synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides, drugs, growth hormones and other non-natural production means commonly used. The following agencies provide certification that the required standards are met:
OCI—Organic Crop Improvement Association 1001 Y Street, Suite B Lincoln, Nebr. 68508-1172 U.S.A.; and
QAI—Quality Assurance International 12526 High Bluff Dr., Suite 300 San Diego, Calif. 92130 U.S.A.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
This invention seeks to overcome the problems that exist with the use of poor quality compost as a fertilizer on soils, such as farmland used for a crop. In particular, this invention seeks to provide pure organic fertilizer pellets that can be used to provide food products, particularly fruit and vegetable products, that comply with the requirements for “organic products”, and thus can be so certified.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Thus, in its broadest embodiment, this invention seeks to provide a process for preparing pure organic fertilizer pellets from a compostable waste material or materials complying with organic standards comprising:
(i) converting the waste material into a fine particulate mass of fully bio-stabilized compost with known levels of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and water under conditions which minimize losses of nutrients due to volatilization and leaching;
(ii) passing the fully bio-stabilized and nutrient rich compost through a relatively coarse screen to provide two fractions, comprising small particle material less than 1 cm and particles greater than 1 cm, and separating the particles greater than 1 cm for further processing;
(iii) passing the small particle material from step (ii) through a second screen, to provide a fine particle material having a diameter of 1 mm or less, in which a major proportion of the fine particles are less than 150 microns in size;
(iv) mixing the fine particle material from step (iii) under controlled conditions with an agronomically acceptable source of nutrients to enhance the compost fertilizer to a desired agronomic level to provide a blended mixture having a known nitrogen:phosphorus:potassium ratio; and
(v) subjecting the blended mixture from step (iv) to a pelleting process at a pressure of from about 2,000 psi to about 6,000 psi to provide a pelleted pure organic fertilizer product meeting applicable organic standards.
In the process of this invention, the first step
Griffin Steven P.
Medina Maribel
Wilkes Robert A.
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