Plant protecting and regulating compositions – Plant growth regulating compositions – Micro-organisms or from micro-organisms
Reexamination Certificate
2002-10-07
2004-06-15
Clardy, S. Mark (Department: 1616)
Plant protecting and regulating compositions
Plant growth regulating compositions
Micro-organisms or from micro-organisms
C424S093500, C435S254100, C435S256100, C435S256700
Reexamination Certificate
active
06750176
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wettable composition for use in agriculture, which comprises filamentous fungi as an active ingredient, which can stably store spores of the filamentous fungi over long periods and which exhibits good physical properties during application, relates to a method for effectively preparing the same, and relates to a method for stably storing the wettable compositions for use in agriculture over long periods.
2. Description of Related Art
Controlling plant diseases and plant pests are indispensable activities for effective agricultural production. In order to do this, synthetic agricultural chemicals have been employed, thereby resulting in good control. However, recently, due to applications of large amounts and various kinds of synthetic agricultural chemicals, resistant pests have arisen and environmental disruption has occurred, and these have become the subjects of discussion. For these reasons, an important problem to be solved in the field of agriculture is to provide methods for effectively and continuously carrying out agricultural production while decreasing the environmental burden.
As one means for solving the problem, microbial pesticides utilizing activities of microorganisms have been proposed. By employing the same alone or in combination with synthetic agricultural chemicals, effects of decreasing the environmental burden and effects of inhibiting frequency of occurrence of resistant diseases and pests, which are serious problems with synthetic agricultural chemicals, can be observed.
At present, as microorganisms anticipated to be used in microbial pesticides, avirulent Fusarium which controls diseases by activating inherent resistance in plants (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 7-267811), Trichoderma exhibiting antibiosis to pathogenicity (The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries of Japan, Registration No. 7023), bacteria infecting weeds (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 4-368306), and the like have been proposed.
As described above, various microorganisms having potentials for use in pesticides have been proposed. For developing microbial preparations, a key point is the ability to stably formulate the microorganisms as an active ingredient in a viable state in view of serious problems such as the death of microorganisms during storage. For this reason, an important problem to be solved is to develop methods for stably storing microorganisms over long periods in a viable state.
In addition, in the formulations of pesticides employing powders of dried microorganisms, it is necessary to prepare uniform suspensions, or powders or granules exhibiting good wettability and coating properties, for effective applications and treatments of the pesticides.
Wettable powders in the formulations of synthetic agricultural chemicals comprise an active ingredient; a solid carrier, examples of which include oxides such as diatomaceous earth or slaked lime, phosphates such as apatite, sulfates such as gypsum, fine powders of mineral materials such as talc, pyroferrite, clay, kaolin, bentonite, acid clay, white carbon, quartz powder, quartzite powder, or the like; and a small amount of surfactant. In the formulations of pesticides comprising powders of dried microorganisms as an active ingredient, it is preferable that they be employed in the form of a wettable powder as described above.
As methods for storing microorganisms, in general, a freeze-drying method, a liquid paraffin fold layer method, an inclined medium method, and the like are known. They are effective in the case of employing microorganisms on a small scale. However, they are not suitable for use as a method for storing microbial pesticides in which large amounts of microorganisms are treated and a high survival rate of the fungi is required.
On the other hand, as microbial pesticides or formulations comprising microbial materials, heretofore, a formulation wherein microorganisms of avirulent Fusarium are adsorbed to a zeolite-based base material, followed by air drying (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. Sho 63-227507), a composition for controlling plant diseases utilizing spore fractions of bacteria belonging to the genus Bacillus (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 8-175919), a composition in which microorganisms having effects of controlling plant diseases are mixed with an adsorbent having an ammonia absorbing power (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2000-264808 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2000-264807), and the like are known.
Unfortunately, in the above-mentioned formulations comprising living microorganisms belonging to the genus Fusarium adsorbed to a zeolite-based base material, the rate of survival of the fungi tends to rapidly decrease when the formulation is stored at room temperature. In the case of the compositions for controlling plant diseases utilizing spore fractions of bacteria belonging to the genus Bacillus, the storage stability of the same has not been known at all. In addition, in the case of the microbial materials, the materials used as culture media are employed as they are, and for this reason, there is a problem in that nutritive components are present, thus promoting the growth of pathogens during storage. On the other hand, in the above-mentioned compositions comprising an adsorbent having an ammonia adsorbing ability, an unadsorbed carrier, that is, a free carrier having an adsorbing ability such as zeolite or silica gel in a state having an adsorbing ability exhibits strong hydrophobic properties, and for this reason, during application of the pesticides, and in particular, during dressing treatment of seeds, or in the case of application using water, inconvenience occurs.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Under these circumstances, an object of the present invention is to provide a wettable composition for use in agriculture comprising microorganisms which can be viable at a high survival rate over long periods and exhibit good physical properties during application, as an active ingredient, and provide a method for stably storing the wettable composition for use in agriculture over long periods.
After diligent research with respect to microbial pesticides, and in particular, wettable compositions for use in agriculture, the present inventors discovered that a wettable composition comprising spores of filamentous fungi having a specific particle size distribution, and an adsorbent having a specific amount of a water absorption ability, as essential ingredients, exhibits good storage properties of the living fungi and exhibits good physical properties during application, discovered that the compositions can be effectively produced by subjecting the mixture comprising the required amounts of the components described above to an impact pulverization treatment, and discovered that by sealing the above-mentioned wettable composition in an impermeable bag, the composition can be stably stored over long periods, thus completing the present invention.
That is, the present invention provides a wettable composition for use in agriculture comprising spores of filamentous fungi which are in the form of dried powders having a volume median diameter ranging from 2 &mgr;m to 10 &mgr;m, and having a ratio of (volume 90% diameter)/(volume 10% diameter) of not more than 5.62, and an adsorbent having a water absorption ability, wherein the adsorbent having a water absorption ability is added in an amount of at least 1% by mass based on the total mass of the composition, provides a method for preparing a wettable composition for use in agriculture, comprising the steps of preparing a mixture of the above-described spores of filamentous fungi, an adsorbent having a water absorption ability, and other additive components, in an appropriate ratio of the same, pulverizing and mixing the mixture by means of impact pulveriz
Misumi Yuji
Nagayama Kozo
Shimizu Tsutomu
Toyooka Katsushi
Watanabe Satoshi
Clardy S. Mark
Kumiai Chemical Industry Co. Ltd.
Oblon & Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt P.C.
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