Page 20 - Vol.36-No.8 issue

CROP PROTECTION

SELF-WATERING’ HYDROGEL SOIL COULD

TRANSFORM FARMING

Engineers at the University of Texas at Early hydrogel soil “Most soil is good enough to support
Austin have created a new type of soil the growth of plants,” added Fei Zhao,
that can pull water from the air and dis- trials suggest 40% water a postdoctoral researcher in Yu’s re-
tribute it to plants, potentially expand- retention search group who led the study with
ing the map of farmable land around the Xingyi Zhou and Panpan Zhang. “It’s the
globe to previously inhospitable places The team ran experiments on the roof water that is the main limitation, so that is
and reducing water use in agriculture at of the Cockrell School’s Engineering why we wanted to develop a soil that can
a time of growing droughts. Teaching Center building at UT Austin to harvest water from the ambient air.”
As published in ACS Materials Letters, test the soil. They found that the hydro- Further applications
gel soil was able to retain water better
the team’s atmospheric water irrigation than sandy soils found in dry areas, and
system uses super-moisture-absorbent it needed far less water to grow plants. The water-harvesting soil is the first
gels to capture water from the air. When big application of technology that Yu’s
the soil is heated to a certain tempera- During a four-week experiment, the group has been working on for more than
ture, the gels release the water, making it team found that its soil retained approxi- two years. Last year, the team developed
available to plants. When the soil distrib- mately 40% of the water quantity it start- the capability to use gel-polymer hybrid
utes water, some of it goes back into the ed with. In contrast, the sandy soil had materials that work like ‘super sponges’,
air, increasing humidity and making it only 20% of its water left after just one extracting large amounts of water from
easier to continue the harvesting cycle. week. the ambient air, cleaning it and quickly
In another experiment, the team plant- releasing it using solar energy.
ed radishes in both types of soil. The
radishes in the hydrogel soil all survived
a 14-day period without any irrigation
beyond an initial round to make sure the
plants took hold. Radishes in the sandy
soil were irrigated several times during
the first four days of the experiment.
None of the radishes in the sandy soil
survived more than two days after the
initial irrigation period.
How self-watering soil works “Enabling free-standing agriculture in
Each gram of soil can extract approxi- areas where it’s hard to build up irrigation The researchers envision several other
mately 3-4g of water. Depending on the and power systems is crucial to liberating applications of the technology. It could
crops, approximately 0.1-1kg of the soil crop farming from the complex water sup- potentially be used for cooling solar
can provide enough water to irrigate about ply chain as resources become increas- panels and data centres. It could expand
a square metre of farmland. The gels in the ingly scarce,” said Guihua Yu, associate access to drinking water, either through
soil pull water out of the air during cool- professor of materials science in the individual systems for households or
er, more humid periods at night. Solar heat Walker Department of Mechanical larger systems for big groups such as
during the day activates the water-contain- Engineering. workers or soldiers.
ing gels to release their contents into soil.
Circle 23 on enquiry card
AGRITELA LUX© BY ARRIGONI PROTECTS

APPLE AND POMEGRANATE TREES

pple and pomegranate are two of insect sight and reduces the presence “At Arrigoni, the search for innovative
Athe most common crops globally. of invasive species. Finally, it affects the solutions for crops such as apple and
The high consumption and the competi- physical characteristics of fruits and pomegranate is a priority and, today, we
tion on the market require a massive pro- stimulates the synthesis of important are able to guarantee a particularly wide
duction, aware of all the risks that could compounds such as antioxidants. range, capable of meeting the needs of
affect quality. Sunburns, uneven colour- different areas and climatic zones” ex-
ing and invasive species are the dangers plains Milena Poledica, an agronomist
that producers face in the cultivation from Arrigoni.
of these two crops. On the other hand, Thanks to its experience as a leader
consumers are increasingly demanding in the design and production of geotex-
products with high qualitative, nutrition- tiles, Arrigoni offers Agritela Lux©, a
al and sensory properties. reflective mulching fabric designed to
Mulching of the soil generally offers improve the colouring of fruits, making
several obvious advantages. Specifi- it more homogeneous.
cally, the white reflective groundcovers Agritela Lux© by Arrigoni provides
are specially designed to help colour the best results with clones and variet-
the fruits and give the plants more light. ies that have difficulty in developing co-
The reflected light also interferes with
lours, such as apple and pomegranate,
18 Vol. 36 No. 8