CA2853147A1 - Plant nursery and storage system for use in the growth of field ready plants - Google Patents

Abstract

A plant nursery and storage system for use in the growth and storage of field-ready plants. At least one planting block with tapered planting cells therein and extending openly from the top surface to the bottom surface thereof is placed in a container holding water. The container can be an in-ground reservoir or a manufactured container of permanent or portable nature. Plant material placed in the planting cells, with or without planting media, will grow into field-ready plants. The growing plants will be sub-irrigated by accessing water through the open base of the planting cells contacting the water in the container. Low maintenance long term living storage of the grown field-ready plants is also achieved, with ongoing sub-irrigation ability. The sub-irrigation technique of the invention replaces industry standards of top irrigation and bottom aeration for plant production, and addresses high costs associated with current production methods in the production of field-ready trees, shrubs, forbs, perennials, vegetables and grasses.

Description

Description 1) Title: Floating Nursery system for low cost production, maintenance and live storage of field ready trees and brush and tomatos. .

2) Field of Invention: This invention generally relates to forestry and horticulture where low-cost infrastructure and operating cost inputs are important objectives.

3) Background:
3.1 North American and advanced tree nursery systems around the world generally require either costly greenhouse buildings and irrigation/water quality/air control technology, hydroponic infrastructure, or, in the case of outdoor field nurseries, costly irrigation and intensive labour and machinery for cultivation and weeding. High cost of conventional tree nursery infrastructure is considered a significant investment risk for start-up businesses. Labour is considered the largest cost for post start-up conventional nursery operations, which directly translates to increase cost of product. Many reforestation programs are capped by tree production costs, which limit potential benefits to the environment and future commercial benefits through habitat use, eco-tourism and tree harvesting.
3.2 In Africa, where vast majority of forests have been cut down for farm land expansion and cooking fuel, reforestation programs are significantly limited by the high cost of tree production relative to government and landowner budgets available. If the cost of trees could be lowered, reforestation programs and forestry farming in Africa and elsewhere could be implemented on a much larger scale. In Asian countries ecologists believe the harvesting and depletion of ocean side mangrove forests led to greater loss of life and property devastation during tsunamis as traditional coastal forests were not present to slow down dramatic wave action. Many Asian countries lack upscale tree production capability whether through expensive western style nurseries or by low cost low technology means as suggested in this patent. Their methods are far more labour intensive similar to common African and Latin American method typified by one litre bag of soil per seedling compared to the average 100 ml of container soil that produces the same healthy seedling but with far greater root development.

3.3 Efforts to minimize the cost of labour in North American and European tree nurseries have involved computer systems, automated watering and shading systems, hybrid seeds, heavier chemical use, climate-controlled buildings, water filtration, nutrient and PH
control and computer automated systems. Such examples of complex systems can be seen in Canadian Patents 2216735 (Takayanagi), 1122803 (Da Vitoria Lobo), 2119043 (Yanohara), and 2382585 (Hessel& Bar-On). In Patent 1122803, Da Vitoria Lobo uses an advanced hydroponics method, but it requires an intensive amount of machinery and micromanagement for effective use on top of the requirement for skilled and specialized workers to implement. Hessel and Bar-On take this a step further, almost completely automating plant production with robotics. This requires significant capital to properly implement, as well as considerable infrastructure and land use.
3.4 Tree plugs and styroblocks, commonly used in the industry as outlined by Canadian patent 2328151 (Pe1ton), have been primarily grown in indoor artificial conditions.
While this allows easier automation, planting, and general nursery operation, these innovations have been primarily utilized in high capital infrastructure facilities. In Pelton's description, both greenhouses and automated planting systems require high capital investment, additional high upkeep that raises costs and year round air conditioning such as heating in the winter and artificial electrical powered ventilation systems in the summer. Once ready for market, conventional tree nurseries require indoor winter storage of trees.
3.5 As outlined by patent 2176102 (Buxton), sub-irrigation is a tested method, with the intention of saving labour costs and raising nursery efficiency. However, Buxton's system is complex and requires that the system maintain constant and even levels of fluid by automation, therefore making it impractical in outdoor conditions where it would be more subject to evaporation and mechanical failure.
3.6 In addition, many current styles of greenhouse production must constantly combat fungus and diseases that comes with numerous trees, shrubs, and other plants grown in a confined, humid and moist space. This raises costs from chemical expenditures as well as labour costs.
3.7 Many of the solutions mentioned above are costly, time consuming for implementation, and may require training for skilled workers to operate and maintain the systems.
Therefore improvements are needed that reduce cost labour and production without increasing production costs in other areas.

4) Summary: The floating nursery consists of floating or suspended soil filled nursery containers, typically used to create container rooted plants in conventional nurseries.
Seeds or cuttings, bare root seedlings, and container root seedlings from other nurseries are planted into the planting containers then left to sub-irrigate in the floating nursery and mature into container roots with little to no maintenance, and little or no additional nutrient feeding apart from that which is in the original soil compartment or which is absorbed vicariously from the water which may be from ponds or streams. The eventual product of this system is a container rooted tree or brush seedling, sapling, or rooted cutting that is ready to field plant or tomato seedlings ready for field planting. In the case of trees and brush, this system is a year round live storage system. In winter the tree/brush filled planting blocks (containers) are frozen in solid ice. The inventor has not discovered an 'expiry date' for trees/shrubs live stored in the floating nursery though it is believed that trees/brush kept in the nursery for one or two years have better field potential than trees stored in the floating nursery for more than two years. More research is required to ascertain the effects of multiple year storage in the floating nursery system.
This invention is a low cost system for proliferating and live storage of diverse container rooted field ready trees, brush (and larger than seedling tree whips) from cuttings, seeds, bare root or smaller sized container rooted seedlings (and container rooted tomatos from seeds and seedlings) When reading the claims and descriptions, other advantages will be apparent to those with experience with systems of the same intent. Other advantages may be gained with obvious modifications to the system as described or put forth by the claims, or when combined with other systems.

5) Brief Description of the Drawings:
Fig. 1 is a drawing of the block, showing the planting holes and tree cuttings at different stages of growth.

Fig. 2 is a cross section of the block, showing the taper at the bottom of the planting hole, and giving an example of how deep each cutting would be planted.
Fig. 3 is an example of the block floating in a body of water, such as a pond.
Fig. 4 is a drawing of the block suspended in a prepared trough.
Fig.5 is an example of a tethering or inventory control method though simple cross pond rope lanes with floatation devices to hold up the ropes. For ease in drawing, the example shows a very small pond 16 feet long by 10 feet wide with only circa 75 floating planting containers that could hold a total of circa 7,500 tree seedlings. A typical pond for upscale production might be more like 200 feet by 50 feet constructed or natural pond or dug out totalling 10,000 square feet that could hold 5,000 floating containers with a total of 500,000 trees.
Description of Reference Numerals 1. Planting Holes 2. Buoyant or Artificially Suspended Block 3. Anchoring Fasteners i) in this case screws with a closed loop ii) in this case a net anchored over the blocks 4. Soil Mixture Option 5. Plant Cutting (may also be seed, a bare root seedling, or already be a container rooted plant)

6. Water

7. Anchoring Tether (in this case, steel cable) Note that rope or cables with or without floating bouys (such as those that delineate swimming lanes in a swimming pool) can replace the need for tethering floating planting blocks in smaller bodies of water such as dug outs or small ponds.

8. Watertight Trough (when not an open water body) 6) Description:
6.1 How To Utilize Floating Nursery System With the block placed on a flat surface the holes are partially filled with a prepared mixture of soil, fibrous material and inert material (example: one third humus, one third peat moss, one third polystyrene beads). Seeds, cuttings, bare root seedlings or container rooted seedlings from another nursery is then placed into each hole and pushed through the soil to near the bottom of the planting portals (holes in the planting block). The portals are then filled the rest of the way with the prepared nursery soil. The block is then typically shaken so dirt fills all portals.
The blocks are then set afloat (or artificially suspended) in a water body. There is typically no further intervention required till the seedlings are harvested for packaging/distribution for field planting. With this method, about 10,000 cuttings or seedlings can be planted per day (including soil production) by a four person team using no automated soil production nor automated planting system. This created a cost of production of nine cents per tree (including the cost of peat moss) and one cent per tree for the polystyrene blocks. If an open water body is utilized with a secure natural source of water then there are no additional costs or maintenance from the day the blocks of plants are floated till the day of harvesting after which they are marketed or distributed for field planting.
The exception is the rare instance of pest control in which incidental chemical or organic means of pest control is applied at some extra cost. The above cost of production assumes operator's free or very low cost access to inert material such as polystyrene beads (milled from waste Styrofoam) and soil made from compost produced by the nursery operator.
Once a block is prepared, it may be labeled with plant variety name and dated with a permanent marker, and set afloat in a prepared trough, containment or natural water body. A
constructed water containment can be filled with water prior to or after placing the planting blocks into it. In testing, troughs were constructed out of simple square wooden frames, and lined with watertight plastic from recycled grain bags. The frames are built so that many blocks can be left floating side by side in a row, with 2-5cm left between the wall of the trough and the block. These troughs were filled using pumped river water. Troughs were refilled to appropriate levels in accordance with water uptake.

6.2 Post Planting Nursery Maintenance Prepared blocks are left alone for the most part. Maintenance typically required is automated refilling of the troughs circa once per week or refilling a constructed pond or dug out should water levels become too low. This is not typically required when the water body is six feet or deeper at the onset of the summer. Weeding and/or planting of living mulch grass in the tree portals is not required if the soil utilized is devoid of weed seeds.
6.3 Instrumental to the invention is fig. 1, a polystyrene block perforated with vertical holes running in even spaced lines from end to end. Such a block is available in North America and is sometimes referred to as a styro-block. The block is not limited to polystyrene, and may be constructed of similarly buoyant material, such as a hollow plastic, aluminum or wood form or may be a non-buoyant container that is artificially suspended in water. In the illustration, this example of the planting block is 34cm wide, by 58cm long, and has a height of 15cm. The holes number 77 planting cells of 170 ml volume for each two square foot block. The innovator of the floating nursery has successfully utilized all versions available including 44 cells of circa 300 ml per two square foot block, 112 cells of 105 ml per two square foot block, and 198 planting cells of 60 ml per two square foot block. Note that the polystyrene block is used in nurseries but not as a floating nursery till this current invention.
6.4 As seen in fig. 2, holes perforating the block are of a diameter large enough to accommodate a single seedling, sapling, or cutting, as well as soil mixture and space for growth of desired root density. These holes taper at the bottom. This lower hole must be large enough to allow water to sub-irrigate, while being small enough to contain the soil mixture and plant itself.
6.5 As seen in fig. 1,2 and 3, the block has the option of using screws with a closed loop to anchor it. Through these loops could be run a steel cable, rope, plastic line, or other attachment. This cable can then be either anchored by a weight, or affixed to an immovable object on shore, or affixed to another block of same description. More likely however, simple tight ropes across the pond or ropes with floatation such as those used to mark swimming lanes in swimming pools can be used to corral the planting blocks or to divide plant inventory in one batch of blocks from another.

6.6 Returning to fig. 2, holes are filled with typical nursery soil mixtures including but not limited to mixtures such as 1/3 humus, 'A fibre, and 'A inert granulate. The mixture promotes good hardy root development that forms high density root mass plug that will hold onto its soil once removed from the container. In the case of tree and brush, their cuttings and seedlings are transferred to the planting blocks so that they run the length of the hole (15 cm in the case of many polystyrene planting blocks), stopping just short of the bottom.
6.7 Necessary to the process of using the planting block (container), the block is set afloat as seen in fig. 3 and 4. This floatation block or suspended block is what provides versatility in the block's implementation, allowing the block to be placed in any natural water bodies such as lake, pond, river, or an artificial construction such as a trough, a swimming pool or in an inverted tote lid in one example of a small portable floating nursery.
6.8 As in fig. 4, the blocks may also be arranged to float or to be artificially suspended in a prepared trough, pool, or other artificial water holding construction. The trough may be of any depth, but a depth of at least 20 cm is suggested (with the optimal suggested being in excess of 30 cm) when a ready refilling system for constructed containments of water is utilized. Rate of water uptake needs to be considered as tree seedlings or even tree whips in excess of one meter in length may be growing in the floating planting blocks at a density of up to 100 plants per square foot!
Irrigation procedure is simple, the trough must be filled regularly enough that it does not go dry using human observation to fill when going empty or using a manual system or a simple automatic water level sensing/filling device.
6.9 When the block is set afloat or suspended in a natural body of water the planting containers are corralled by man-made or natural geological limits. Man-made corrals can be as simple as ropes or cables with or without occasional floatation buoys strung across a dug out or pond reminiscent of those used to define swimming lanes in community swimming pools. A flotilla of planting blocks of a different species or variety of plant can be placed between each set of ropes. Alternately, if the individual planting blocks are labeled then no separation or corralling is technically required though still desired for quick physical counting of nursery inventory. In the case of a small constructed dug out, pond or dam the shores of the water body can act as a sufficient corral mechanism especially when the inventory of vegetables, forbs or trees are of only one variety or are readily distinguishable from one another.
6.10 Constructed indoor or outdoor water containments such as troughs or constructed shallow ponds allow the producer to choose location of the nursery compared to placing the planting blocks in natural sloughs for example which may be some distance from the operations area for monitoring, packaging and distribution.
Once grown to appropriate size, tree seedlings or whips can be easily pulled from the blocks by hand and wrapped into bundles. They are then ready for planting or sale.
6.11 Advantages of Container Root Seedling Over Bare Root Seedling The floating nursery produces container rooted seedlings whose advantages over bare root seedlings for ease in transplanting are well documented i.e.: the container root seedling can be harvested at any time of the year that the soil is above zero temperature and can be field planted at any time during the growing season. This compares with the field bare root nurseries in which bare root seedlings can typically be harvested for best results only when the seedling is dormant in the fall or spring. The dormant seedling must, for best results, be kept refrigerated and in darkness till field planting. This compares to the container root seedling that can be harvested from the nursery at any time and can be field planted at any time during the growing season.
6.12 Infrastructure, Operating and Space Cost Comparison The present invention provides a very simple solution to problems related to high infrastructure costs and labour costs, as the process utilizes a small fraction of the capital infrastructure and maintenance after initial setup.
6.13 Conventional bare root field nurseries typically requires far higher irrigation infrastructure, higher operating costs in weed control, cultivation, and irrigation; higher machine and human labour costs for harvesting (under cutting, digging and transporting) ;
and requires a far larger land base to produce the same number of trees as the floating nursery.
The floating nursery is a more intensive and efficient use of space than even high density indoor nurseries, with set up costs a fraction the cost of indoor nursery.

9 In the case of conventional outdoor field grown tree seedling production, irrigation infrastructure and human and machine labour including tillage and weeding are very high relative to the invention in this patent.
6.14 Growing tree seedlings outside in the floating nursery reduces the risk of fungus and disease that are often associated with high humidity indoor nursery systems.
6.15 Floating Nursery Ideal for Operations Requiring Little to No Infrastructure The present invention when installed as an outdoor system, fosters large scale tree development in places with very little infrastructure, or where constructing such infrastructure would be undesirable as in environmentally sensitive areas. The floating nursery requires none of the following needs typical of many large scale indoor tree nursery operations: electricity, filters, PH and nutrient balancers, and air humidity and ventilation controls.
Buildings may be utilized to house a floating nursery but are not required, as the preferred embodiment of this invention is outdoors. In the ideal case, no construction of a nursery is required if the floating nursery is an outdoor pond, existing dug-out (water pan), dam or any other natural water body environment. If no water pan exists, the user can excavate a simple low cost water holding pan for the floating or suspended nursery.
6.16 Winter Tree Storage Conventional tree nurseries endure very high costs of winter indoor tree storage/controlled heating and/or refrigeration compared to the innovation in question. The floating or suspended nursery system stores trees, brush and grasses in-situ in their containers that are in turn frozen in the solid ice of troughs or ponds etc in the outdoors or in unheated indoor floating nursery.
7) Examples of Operation:
7.1 Typical Mass Production of Hybrid Poplar Seedlings The inventor tested the floating nursery system to produced tens of thousands of rooted seedlings from hybrid poplar cuttings. In example cuttings of nine to 18 inches were placed into two square foot super blocs with 44, 77, 112 and 198 planting portals per two foot square styrofoam containers from early May till end June. After end June, the super blocs with cuttings were sprinkler irrigated indoors twice a day for one week till leaves were on the cuttings after which the cuttings were placed into the floating nursery. During April, May and June operations, the super blocs with the cuttings were placed directly into the floating nursery and had close to 100% of cuttings becoming rooted seedlings. The longer the cutting the quicker it developed roots and developed a solid plug and the quicker therefor it was field ready.
7.2 Typical Mass Production of Willow Varieties in Floating Nursery The blocks of willow cuttings were placed in a constructed 12 inch deep pond in late July to mid-August. By end September, the willow had massive root systems. The willows were distributed for sale in late April the following spring after being frozen in the pond in 'super blocs' during the winter. Chain link fencing was placed around the shallow ponds to keep deer from eating the seedlings during winter. In the following spring after the ice melted, the rooted seedlings were pulled from the super blocs and field planted in many commercial forestry plantings. Some of the poplars were left in the nursery into year two and retained their field viability. Some of the poplars were left in the floating nursery past year three and are currently being tested for their field viability (when they have been in the floating nursery for more than two years).
7.3 Pond Construction for Willow Proliferation from Cuttings In this example, the innovator expended four hours with a 100 hp tractor and front end loader to dig out a shallow pond (water pan) twelve inches in depth and 2,400 square feet in area. The pond is topped up with pumped river water once per week on average and holds 1,200 planting blocks or 120,000 seedlings on average. Once the blocks were floated, they were abandoned from mid August to end September after which time the Laurel, Golden, Silver and Acute Willows in this case were field ready in a record amount of time. Four hours of work to create a maintenance free nursery for 120,000 seedlings is suggested to be the lowest infrastructure cost, lowest maintenance and highest output nursery ever created.
7.5 Long Cuttings Produce Quicker Tree Whip Production In this example, one meter long rooted poplar adequate for field planting were produced in 12 weeks (three months) which tree industry experts claim takes 12 months. A
wide variety of tree and shrub varieties indigenous to North America and tropical regions were successfully tested in the floating nursery.
7.6 Portable Floating Nursery Example In this example, portable floating nurseries in the form of single planting blocks filled 3/4 full with soil were placed in water filled upside down plastic tote lid which hold American Elms that were seeding. Of the 112 cells in each planting block there were average of 163 spontaneous seedlings grown in the block without human intervention in the seeding. This represented more than 150% of the cells filled with one seedling. The utility of the portable floating nursery is that the floating nursery can be temporarily located under trees which are releasing their seeds (elm, maple, cottonwood, green ash, or ebony for example). This allows for spontaneous planting of the trees into the portable nursery 'portals' without the need of human harvesting and planting tree seeds or other plant material into the floating nursery.
7.7 Using the Floating Nursery to Convert Bare Roots into Container Roots In this example bare root seedlings of maple, dogwood, rose, lilac, pin cherry, Siberian crab, sand cherry, green ash were placed in 'super blocs' in June with a typical soil mixture. By the end of the growing season in September, all the container root seedlings had produced massive amounts of root fibre to become a container root with all the advantages thereof for fall field planting and other conveniences.
7.8 Floating Nursery Used for 'Live Storage' of 'Excess Seedlings' In this example, 50,000 container rooted hybrid poplar which were considered surplus stock from another nursery, were placed back into superblocks similar to which they may have been produced in the first place. However, instead of being in an indoor higher technology nursery, the blocks this time were placed into an open pond with cross pond ropes separating the different varieties. Many nurseries discard and compost excess plant material at the end of each planting/marketing cycle. The floating nursery system allows for an extremely low cost method of storing the seedlings for another season.

7.9 Floating Nursery Utilized for Low Maintenance Vegetable Seedling Production In a vegetable example, planting blocks traditionally used to develop container tree seedlings were planted with tomato seeds and other blocks had two week old tomato seedlings transplanted into them after which both series of blocks were placed into floating nurseries for an additional number of weeks up until planting time. There was zero maintenance from the time of seeding or transplant into the floating nursery containers till the time of harvesting the seedlings for field planting.
7.10 Grass As Living Mulch in the Floating Tree Nursery Creeping Red Fescue Grass was successfully seeded within the same portals as the trees in the planting blocks. This was carried out to create a 'living mulch' to keep out more aggressive grasses and weeds from the tree nursery.
7.12 The examples given in no way represents an exhaustive list of possibilities for use of this innovation. Other immediately obvious uses will be apparent to anyone familiar with tree and plant nurseries. Neither is any plan suggested in the specifications standalone or beyond modification.
Simple modifications, such as an automated watering system for the trough or pond or use of nutrients in the water may be beneficial as immediate and apparent possibilities. As well, despite the lack of infrastructure required to use this invention effectively, it could easily be combined with other more complex systems. All future modifications, uses, and improvements relating to this innovation is still considered the inventor's innovation and intellectual property and should not be claimed as a new invention.

Claims (11)

Claims A method of culturing, growing, maintaining and providing live storage for trees and shrubs in container root form (for purpose of this document the term 'trees' shall refer to both trees and shrubs) with minimal labour or infrastructure, utilizing:

1) A planting container consisting of and containing:
a) Polystyrene or similarly buoyant or non-buoyant artificially suspended container placed in a natural or constructed containment of water in a fixed location;
b) A grid of holes running from top to bottom of the container, open at both ends, but slightly narrower at bottom, holes are sized according to plant material size;
c) using soil medium typical of living plant nursery operations i.e.:
combinations of humus or topsoil, inert material and fibre d) Into each hole is planted a cutting of typical lengths of three to eight inches planted into planting blocks e) Said container set afloat or suspended in a constructed water holding container such as a trough or containment or in a pond, dug out, dam, river or other relatively calm body of water;

2) As described in 1 d but instead of cuttings, the portals are seeded with or without the aid of humans with seeds. Without humans means the permanent nursery or portable floating nursery is placed below or in the vicinity of seeding trees whose seeds do not require stratification to germinate.

3) As described in 1d but instead of cuttings, bare root seedlings are planted into the portals. The inventor refers to this technique as 'converting bare root into container root seedlings'.

4) As described in 1d but instead of cuttings, the portals are planted with container root seedlings that are of normal or inferior size for live storage or for growing out.

5) As described in section 1d, but the cuttings installed may be in excess of one meter and that, in the case of willows, even small cuttings can become a field ready rooted seedling in as little as 5 weeks; in the case of poplars the longer cuttings can be field ready rooted seedlings in as little as 10 to 12 weeks. The longer the cutting the quicker the time to become field ready.

6) As described in 1d but instead of tree cuttings, vegetable seeds or vegetable seedlings are planted.

7) As described in 1d but instead of tree cuttings, grass seed of various species and varieties are planted as a living mulch to stop weed invasion within the floating tree nursery.

8) As described in 8 above except that the trees with the living mulch grass is eventually field planted where the living mulch grass continues to grow and often spread in the field planting in which case the grass growing around the field planted tree continues to act as a living mulch against more aggressive grasses and annual 'weeds' in the field.

9) As described in la but the body of water with a suspended or floating container of plant material (floating nursery) may be a portable floating nursery utilized for natural attenuation seeding of trees into the portable floating nursery. Alternatively the portable floating nursery can be utilized for any purpose of proliferating trees and other cultures in smaller numbers where there is a benefit to the producer and others in the nursery being a smaller portable floating nursery that may be small enough to be carried by one person.

10) The floating nursery system can be utilized as a year-round storage system in all climatic zones once seedlings or whips are installed or produced. Even in northern climates the seedlings or whips do not have to be removed from the floating nursery in the winter. The floating containers and their tree material are frozen solid in ice from the water body for up to eight months. Evidence shows that the ice insulates the tree and brush roots from frost kill compared to seedlings harvested and placed into unheated buildings in the same climatic zone which can suffer some mortality during winter storage.

11) As described in 1d above when a 70 cm to 200 cm whip size cuttings are planting in a density of 30 to 100 tree whips per square foot, poplar cuttings create a rooted whip that is self-pruned and the whips of several varieties retain this pruned aspect after field planting.