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Plantov offers a bio-degradable SAP
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Plantov offers a bio-degradable SAP material for Agriculture (Ag-tech) so as to enhance water-efficiency.
SAP’s can absorb and retain extremely large amounts of water; over 300 times their own weight.
By using Plantov’s SAP, growers can increase their water efficiency, in both irrigated and dry farming.
Plantov’s SAP is distributed in the soil around the plant. It absorbs and retains the water as a hydrogel.
The water is made available to be naturally-consumed by the plant, as needed.
Plantov’s SAP can be capsulized with fertilizers and pesticides which decrease their usage while retaining their efficiency.
Plantov’s SAP provides the plant with a stable water supply and prevents “plant stress” which is the biggest grower pain as it decreases yield and has other negative effects.
Plantov’s SAP keeps its absorbency quality upon re-use, until it is seasonally biodegrades with no external intervention and without polluting the soil.
Product advantage - biodegradability
Plantov’s eSAP degrades easily and does no harm to the soil.
Contrary to commonly used SAPs, Plantov’s eSAP is 100%
biodegradable.
It biodegrades seasonally whereas the comparable SAPs need well over 100 years to biodegrade!
When eSAP degrades it leaves no traces of residual monomers, no microplastics nor any toxic or pollutant materials.
The eSAP is adjustable to each class of plants by rate of biodegradation material content and subscribed to soil consolidation.
The current common SAP deteriorates the soil
The current common sodium Polyacrylate based SAP’s harm the soil, as they leave sodium and plastic residuals! This limits their usage in agriculture.
The common SAP takes over a century to biodegrade.
It causes soil degradation (Na⁺ = salt that degrade the soil).
As an absorbent material it has a built-in chemical limitation: once exposed to di-valent ions soluble in water (i.e. Calcium Ca2+), it stops absorbing.
These SAPs form harmful non-biodegradable plastic, contain residual monomers > 400 ppm and leave residual pollutants in the soil. The residual monomers may create hazards to farmers and to crops.
Global food resources, fresh water and water efficiency
Crop production will have to double by the year 2050 to fulfil the needs of a growing and increasingly affluent population of nine billion people while the accessible fresh water and soil to grow crops will get smaller and soil degradation will negatively affect yield. The need for food is expected to grow in a higher ratio than all yield improvement driven by the ~$100B annual spend in Agri-tech.
Rain-fed agriculture is practiced on 80 percent of the arable land and is suffering from climate change. Irrigation multiplies yields of most crops by two to five times. Irrigated agriculture contributes 40% of the world's food production and makes up 70% of freshwater usage.
Availability is subject to shortage, overuse and misuse.
Water is a major resource in natural food, e.g. about 70% of the cost of a tomato grown in a green house is water. Water’s selected footprint in food is (in litres); potato 13L, apple 70L, cup of coffee140L, glass of milk 200L and hamburger 2,400L.
Current “surface irrigation” procedures provide water efficiency of about 20%-40%, i.e. only a small part of moisture is actually absorbed by the plant. The rest, 60%-80%, is lost by evaporation, percolating, runoffs or simply ground moisture being too far away from the reach of plant roots.
Water efficiency is a particularly critical factor in arid and semi-arid regions where rain pattern is irregular and where there is no water infrastructure. Sadly, these circumstances occur in poor areas and are all badly harming crops as lack of stable, continuous water supply cause “plant stress” which has a major negative effect on crop yield and food supply growth.