patentECO - No-Till Poultry Litter

No-till poultry litter

The Shenandoah Valley, where I live, is a major poultry producing area. The Valley lies within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, a 64,000 square-mile area that contributes tributary flow, and pollutants, to the Nation’s largest and most productive estuary. In 2010, the Chesapeake Bay watershed produced more than 1 billion broiler chickens, 27.5 million turkeys, and 1.5 million tons of poultry litter, which is the bedding material and poultry manure produced by the poultry houses that raise the birds. Poultry litter contains significant amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus, and represents a valuable source of agricultural fertilizer (and a potential alternative energy source).

These 1.5 million tons of litter also represent a significant source of nonpoint source pollution to the region’s waterways after the litter is applied to farm fields. An article this morning in our local paper covered a research project now underway in the area that is testing a new piece of agricultural equipment that can potentially reduce pollutant loads from field-applied poultry litter.

The equipment injects poultry litter below the surface of a field in a manner similar to that used in no-till agricultural practices. After some detective work, I found that this equipment was recently granted a US patent.

Patent number 7,814,848, “System for distributing poultry litter below the soil surface,” was granted to Daniel H. Pote (Booneville, AR) and Stephen M. Haller (Magazine, AR) on October 19, 2010. Pote and Haller are employees at the Dale Bumpers Small Farm Research Center in Arkansas; the Center is a part of the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service. The patent is assigned to USDA. It is classified as 111/130, which covers planting technology that uses broadcasting. As of early January 2012, 278 patents are found in this subclass, with the earliest issued in 1841 for a rotary cultivator. It was Patent number 2,040; check out the drawing — it’s art.

Back to the present. Claim 1 states:

“An apparatus for distributing soil amendment materials comprising:

a) a plurality of soil cutting blades effective to cut a plurality of substantially parallel trenches in the soil when pulled through the soil in a direction of travel;

b) a dispenser for delivering soil amendment material to the trench cut in the soil rearward of said cutting blades, wherein said dispenser comprises:
1) a receptacle comprising opposed front and rear walls and opposed side walls, an inlet for said material, and a lower surface extending between said walls;
2) said lower surface comprising a plurality of substantially parallel elongated troughs disposed substantially longitudinally along the length thereof, each of said troughs having an outlet at the bottom thereof, wherein each said outlet is positioned adjacent to one of said front wall or rear wall and rearward of and over the path of travel of one of said cutting blades effective to dispense said material to said trench in the soil;
3) a plurality of screw augers, wherein one said auger is disposed in each of said troughs and said augers are adapted to both transport said material in a direction along the length of said troughs toward said outlets and grind or shear said material as said material is transported;
4) an upstanding face plate disposed laterally between said side walls substantially perpendicular to said troughs and augers, and on the side of said outlets which is upstream from said direction of transport of said material in said troughs, said face plate defining first and second volumes within said receptacle, said first volume being upstream of said face plate relative to said direction of transport of said material, and said second volume being downstream of said face plate relative to said direction of transport of said material and encompassing said outlets; and
5) said face plate comprising a bottom edge adjacent said troughs and an upper edge disposed above the uppermost radial edge of said augers, and said face plate further comprising a plurality of openings through which said screw augers pass.”

This technology, found in the patentECO Agriculture Index, allows biodegradable solid soil amendment material, such as poultry litter, to be disposed of in soil by cutting soil trenches, grinding or shearing the material, and distributing it to the trenches in the soil.

A November 2010 press release from ARS announced that an exclusive license was awarded to BBI Spreaders of Cornelia, GA to commercialize this technology. BBI’s spreaders can also use precision agriculture electronics. ARS estimates that nutrient losses from field application of poultry litter can be reduced by 90 percent. Widespread use of these spreaders could make a significant contribution to the long-term and ongoing efforts to improve water quality in Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.

patentECO - Clean Fertilizers for Agriculture

Clean fertilizers for agriculture?

According to US Department of Agriculture statistics, from July 30, 2008 through June 30, 2009, 17.7 million tons of primary inorganic plant nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium — the N-P-K on your bag of fertilizer) were used in the US. For selected secondary, micronutrients, and natural organic materials (gypsum, sulfur, sulfuric acid, zinc, compost, dried manure, sewage sludge, and other organic materials), FY2009 saw 2.3 million tons consumed. For comparison, the total weight (20 million tons) is the equivalent of 220 Washington Monuments.

“Bio-processed mineral fertilisers including micro-elements”, patent number 8,066,793, was issued on November 29, 2011 to Clive Prebble Sinclair (Pukekohe, New Zealand) and assigned to Kagree Holdings Limited (Waiku, New Zealand). The patent is classified as 71/8, which includes inventions using bacterial fermentation or decomposition processes to produce fertilizer. For a historical perspective, the earliest US patent (number 26,184) issued in this class and subclass was for improvement in fertilizers to Louis Harper of Navasink, NJ on November 22, 1859.

Claim 1 states:

A bio-processed mineral fertiliser comprising:

a crushed phosphate-rich mineral substrate, the mineral substrate having been at least partially rendered bioavailable by a composting process utilizing microorganisms;

organic proteinaceous matter;

cellulose-rich particulate material;

and an effective amount of one or more selected microelements, the microelement being chelatedly bound to the organic proteinaceous matter and/or to the mineral substrate component wherein the fertiliser has a neutral pH, and is capable of slowly releasing the bound one or more microelements over an extended period of time after application of the fertiliser to soil, yet not exposing the composting microorganisms or existing soil microorganisms to a toxic concentration of said one or more selected microelements.

The invention describes a method of including micro-elements in a dry, flowable fertilizer of degraded minerals together with micro-organisms by the use of chelated microelements within the nutrients provided to the micro-organisms at the start of a composting procedure. The minerals can include limestone, zeolites, serpentine, or rock phosphate or a combination, ground to a particle size of 0.3-0.7 mm, and used in part as a digestible substrate (which becomes partly decomposed) by the micro-organisms which are nourished with some waste protein material under relatively high temperatures for a period of weeks. The waste protein material used as nutrients usually comprises waste from the fishing industry (about 70% by weight of a catch is not used for human consumption).

Several aspects of this invention are noteworthy and allow it to be located in multiple locations within the patentECO clean technology ecosystem.

• This biomediated fertilizer will result in an increased microbial biomass in the soil, which will enhance crop yields and provide a carbon dioxide sink.
• The total amount of a microelements required for effective treatment is far less (than with conventional crop treatments) when the microelement has been included into the biomass, than if the microelement was spread on the land as an inorganic salt. Further, toxic effects of direct application on soil micro-organisms are absent. Release is slow and is likely to be directly from micro-organism to plant root hairs within or near the rhizosphere, so that waterways are not contaminated.
• The invention is capable of consuming considerable quantities of fish offal (that is, the about 70% of the original catch of a fishing vessel that is not usable as fish fillets).
• Macro- and micronutrients are released to the soil slowly, thus reducing episodic loading to neighboring waterways following rain and snowmelt events.

Increased agricultural use of fertilizers such as this could be an important contributor to reducing nonpoint source nutrient loads to water resources like Chesapeake Bay and the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico, and to increasing crop yields in a cost-effective way for farmers.

patentECO - Simple Tech

When you consider the question, “what is clean technology?”, what comes to mind?

Biofuels? Solar panels? Wind turbines? Environmentally-friendly household cleaning products? Each of these are found in Way Better Patents clean technology ecosystem, and they all have something in common — they are the end products of a large and complex manufacturing infrastructure, and each is a complex product in and of itself.

What about a specialized culvert grate with no moving parts that requires little or no maintenance? Is it clean technology?

Yes, it is.

Patent number 6,338,595, “Storm water control header for culverts ”, was issued on January 15, 2002 to Adrian T. Schollen of Markham, Ontario, Canada. The invention is classified as 405/125, which places it with other inventions that control, treat, or contain fluids using culverts. These inventions are found in the major technology category of hydraulic and earth engineering (Class 405 of the US Patent Classification system).  

Claim 1 states:

“A storm-water header for connection to a culvert or conduit to moderate the flow of storm-water through the culvert comprising, 

a head-wall having a thimble on the downstream side thereof, an adjustable inlet control device on the upstream side of the head-wall, said head-wall being adapted to be vertically mounted in a ditch or water course with the thimble received in said culvert, weir means in said control device for retaining water to a depth of the position of the weir, and having a base section provided with openings to permit the flow of a reduced volume of water through said control device, whereby heavy flows of storm-water pass over said weir, and light flows of rain fall flow through said openings in said base section.”

This invention reduces the velocity of stormwater flowing into a culvert, thus reducing its potential to erode sediment and entrain pollutants in the runoff water. This invention, and others like it, could play a role in reducing the pollution from runoff in urban, suburban, and agricultural areas.

The loading of nonpoint source pollutants such as nitrogen, phosphorus, sediment, toxins, and metals is a very significant concern in much of the country (the Chesapeake Bay watershed is a prime example), and simple, cost-effective, and low-cost solutions, are vital.