Chemistry: fertilizers – Processes and products – Organic material-containing
Reexamination Certificate
1998-08-25
2001-10-30
Langel, Wayne (Department: 1754)
Chemistry: fertilizers
Processes and products
Organic material-containing
C047S057600, C047SDIG001, C071S025000, C071S026000, C071S028000, C071S029000, C071S030000, C071S064100, C071S011000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06309440
ABSTRACT:
This invention relates to a method of treating plants to stimulate their growth and/or their production of edible or other useful products such as fruits, nuts, etc.
Traditional plant nutrition has, to date, approached remedial programs through a chronological path of observation, tissue and/or soil analysis, diagnosis, followed by remedy. Such an approach presupposes and accepts certain natural-occurring phenomena as limitations, the realm in which the plant must necessarily function:
(1) that the plant must operate within and as such is constrained by an array of existing environmental factors such as climate and weather, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (0.03%), duration and intensity of light, the seasons, limiting edaphic factors, etc.
(2) that the plant must obey certain natural “time” frames of growth and reproduction.
(3) that traditional irrigation, fertilization and pest control strategies will express the full potential of a plant's growth and reproduction.
(4) that the application of some predetermined, deficient nutrient(s) at a specified time and rate will restore the plant to its optimal condition.
(5) that the plant is totally resigned to “autotrophism” and as such must conform to this mode of growth, alone.
An example of a current used technique to enhance growth and/or crop production of plants and of its limitations is as follows: Nitrogen added as a fertilizer or plant nutrient may be in the form of pentavalent (oxidized) nitrogen such as a nitrate or in the trivalent (reduced) form such as ammonia or urea. Assuming that the nitrogen applied to a plant is converted to a protein in which the nitrogen is trivalent, if the form of the nitrogen added is a nitrate it must be converted to the trivalent form which requires a considerable expenditure of energy over and above what is required if the nitrogen is applied in the form ammonia or urea. The energy required must come from tissues of the plant directly or through photosynthesis. This would indicate that the application of nitrogen as ammonia or urea would place less demand upon the plant. However the application of nitrogen wholly as ammonia or urea has or may have disadvantages such as:
(1) a sudden drain of both carbon skeletons and energy.
(2) as a result of the condition created in No. 1, a low carbohydrate:nitrogen ratio promoting vegetative but marginal reproductive growth.
(3) inhibition of photosynthetic electron transport by the ammonium ion.
(4) urea-mediated denaturation of proteins through disruption of sulfhydryl bonds.
Another approach is to add a carbohydrate, such as sugar, directly, for example by a foliar spray of a sucrose or other water soluble, assimilable form of carbohydrate. The sugar, when absorbed into the leaves, will provide a source of energy and also a source of carbon skeleton from which, for example, proteins can be synthesized by the plant. This can be, and often is, a very expensive way in which to apply a source of energy and or carbon skeleton. Also if carbohydrate fractions, alone, are added to the plant, various minerals would be needed to compensate for corresponding demands on balanced physiology. Under greenhouse conditions using daily, complete nutrient fertilizers (such as Hoagland's Solution) and a full range of controlled climatic and other environmental factors, the otherwise sudden physiological imbalances brought on by carbohydrate additions alone could be mollified. Resultingly, this would tend to be manifested in increased growth responses. Under actual field conditions, however, these same isolated additions of beneficial carbohydrates would tend to create offsetting physiological imbalances and would not manifest in full the potential benefits of these treatments.
It is an object of the present invention to provide improvements in the application of nutrients and energy sources to plants especially in consideration of highly variable edaphic and climatic factors, pest and disease pressures and various cultural practices experienced and exercised in both commercial and home-garden farming. Furthermore, presently exercised practices in commercial agriculture, out of economic necessities, place and demand unnaturally productive outputs from the plant. Additionally, all of such vintage productivities are demanded of the plant using traditional, natural cultural practices. It is no wonder then, that farmers are persistently witness to such maladies of the commercial flora as alternate cycles of production, quality variations and shortened productive life, to name a few.
It is a particular object of the invention to provide a method of stimulating the growth of plants and/or the yield of crops or other useful products and to provide compositions which are useful in the practice of such method especially with respect to the aforementioned conditions which beleaguer present day agriculture.
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Bozicevic, Field & Francis
Field Bret E.
Langel Wayne
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