Plant husbandry – Miscellaneous – Modified earth's surface – e.g. – sod – turf – reinforced
Patent
1994-10-31
1997-01-07
Raduazo, Henry E.
Plant husbandry
Miscellaneous
Modified earth's surface, e.g., sod, turf, reinforced
2425645, B26B 100
Patent
active
055904882
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to sod handling and is particularly applicable to sod washing systems but can also be applied to harvesting and other processing of sod.
The term sod in this specification, which is used in some countries in the world, can be considered to be identical to turf, which is used in other countries, and in each case is the upper stratum of soil which contains the roots of grass and, indeed, the processes which we will be describing have to do with the harvesting and the handling of grasses and in particular to grasses which are grown for this purpose.
There is a recognised primary industry of sod growing and the sod so grown is harvested by the use of a cutter blade which passes through the sod at a predetermined depth to ensure that a required quantity of the root mass is retained and two such harvesting systems, which are purely exemplary, can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,944,352 of Brouwer et al and U.S. Pat. No. 5,064,000 of Dover et al.
It is also known to take the sod so harvested and to remove from the sod the soil, which may include sand and other organic matter by a washing process and the original form of this process is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,063,384 of Warren et al.
The present invention is not directed specifically to the harvesting step but can provide, in one aspect, in association with a harvester, means whereby some or all of the soil (and in this specification we shall henceforth refer to soil to include sand, humus and other organic or non-organic matter which is enmeshed in the root mass) can be removed as part of the harvesting step or separately therefrom.
Whilst the Warren type process has been further developed by Strathayr and now provides an end product which is satisfactory, it does have two ancillary aspects which are less than satisfactory.
The first of these is that it uses very substantial quantities of water. This, of course, is not desirable if water supplies are restricted and, even where there is substantial water, it can in itself lead to difficulties.
The wash water, after it has been used to remove soil, can often have relatively high nutrient values and may also have weed seeds or vegetative plant material and, for these reasons, it may not be acceptable, or even legal, to pass the waste water into natural water courses as the nutrients and other foreign material can be most undesirable. For example, nutrients can feed blue/green algae and other undesirable organisms and undesirable plants can be spread along the water course.
The second is that the water entrains substantial quantities of soil fines, the heavier particles will tend to rapidly drop out before reaching the watercourse, and, again, it is not desirable that large quantities of soil be fed to water courses.
In order to overcome these difficulties it may be necessary to provide large settlement ponds in which the water can be passed and from which, in some cases, the water can be recycled after settling and further in which, if necessary, the water can be treated to remove the nutrients. At the same time in these ponds the fines drop out of the water and can be recovered.
In one aspect of the invention, we provide a method of recycling water in such a way that a large percentage of the solid material is removed therefrom and can be readily returned to the field and the quantity of water which needs treatment is very substantially reduced.
We also include, in further aspects of the invention, handling methods for the delivery or take up of sod from a roll to or from a conveyor and methods of supporting sod to prevent physical damage thereto.
Further, washing processes are restricted by the quantity of soil to be removed and in a still further aspect of the invention we provide a treatment process which can be used in association with a washing process to effect preliminary removal of at least part of the soil which system can, in some cases, even totally replace a washing process where the soil is very friable.
The invention, in one aspect provides a sod washing system in which the w
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Brouwer Gerardus J.
Casimaty Gabriel
Fraser Ian
Raduazo Henry E.
Schindler Edwin D.
StrathAyr Pty. Limited
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