Biodegradable plastic is a term that\u2019s been around for a while, but companies are now making some real headway developing products for horticulture.<\/p>\n
In 1998, BASF invented a polymer \u2013 based on polyester \u2013 that microorganisms could eat, use to produce energy and create the end products of carbon dioxide and water.<\/p>\n
Their commercial product was called Ecoflex that provided biodegradable films to package things like produce in the grocery store. It is globally certified to be compostable in an industrial situation.<\/p>\n
Recently BASF leaders wondered if there were uses for Ecoflex in agriculture. One idea was agricultural mulch film.<\/p>\n
In 2004, Japanese farmers were having difficulties with contamination from polyethylene film in their fields, said Ruth Watts with BASF\u2019s Biopolymers Group in North America.<\/p>\n
Mulch film helps with water management, weed management and minimizing soil erosion, but it wasn\u2019t that easy to pull the film up after its usefulness was gone.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you get 100 percent out of the field? Most of the time, the answer is \u2018No,\u2019 and it\u2019s more difficult if you have a pretty deep root system,\u201d said Watts.<\/p>\n
Their other issue was where to put the mulch film after it was pulled up. Landfills around the world are filling up.<\/p>\n
Watts and others looked at the Ecoflex technology as a possible solution, and that technology developed into Ecovio \u2013 a partially-biobased product that has received global soil and compost certification.<\/p>\n
Farmers are finding they can till Ecovio under in the fall and it will biodegrade before spring.<\/p>\n
Strawberry plant farmers can put Ecovio down on the bed and plant their seeds. When the plants are ready for digging up, the film can be disked into the soil.<\/p>\n
Many types of truck farms could benefit from using the product, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe value is to manage the water, minimize weed control and also to improve the yield,\u201d Watts said.<\/p>\n
Farmers in Asia found they could increase processing tomato yields by 20 percent with a mulch product. They use a combine to harvest the tomatoes, and traditional polyethylene film would plug up the harvester.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they found this technology \u2013 that once it was dug into the field, it would be degraded with the microbes in the soil \u2013 they said they would give it a try,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Watts has also worked with a farmer in Canada testing Ecovio for three years. In 2014, the farmer raised sweet corn, tomatoes and lettuce on the same field beds. After each harvest, he tilled Ecovio under and reapplied the agricultural mulch film to aid the next crop.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has not seen any evidence of the mulch film after the winter season,\u201d Watts said.<\/p>\n
She and her team will continue to focus on adopting new uses for Ecovio and best management strategies for its use.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far as weed management, water management, yield and providing a sustainable future, Ecovio maximizes their overall cost performance,\u201d Watts said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Biodegradable plastic is a term that\u2019s been around for a while, but companies are now making some real headway developing products for horticulture. In 1998, BASF invented a polymer \u2013 based on polyester \u2013 that microorganisms could eat, use to produce energy and create the end products of carbon dioxide and water. Their commercial product […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[],"supplier":[75],"class_list":["post-25920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","supplier-basf-se"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25920"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=25920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}