Seed Treatment Apparatus

Abstract

A seed treatment apparatus provides for minimal waste of products for treating seeds, in that it is precisely controllable and automatically adjustable. A volume of seeds to be treated and a flow rate of treatment product for treating the seeds can both be sensed. At least one of the flow rate of the treatment product and the volume of seeds can automatically be adjusted if it is determined that a ratio of the flow rate of treatment product to the volume of seeds is not the same as a predetermined flow rate to volume ratio.

Description

RELATED APPLICATION[0001]The present application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61 / 273,325, filed Aug. 3, 2009, which is fully incorporated herein by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to an apparatus for surface treatment of seeds and more particularly to a seed treatment apparatus that minimizes waste of treatment products.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Seeds that are planted for agricultural and other purposes are often treated prior to planting. The treatments may accomplish various purposes including attacking target bacteria, molds and fungus that can contaminate seeds or that may be present in the soil. Also seed treatment can include insecticides, pesticides and provide deterrence or prevention of insect and other animal pests that would target seeds. Treatments may also provide fertilizer. Direct application of seed treatment allows for a reduction in the amount of treatment composition that would be required by app...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0012]A feature and advantage of the present invention is reduction of waste of treatment products in treating seeds. Seeds are metered by volume because volume has a direct correlation to surface area, unlike weight or number of seeds, which determines the amount of treatment products necessary to coat the seeds. By adjusting the amount of treatment products pumped from the tanks as a function of the volume of seeds being treated, waste of excess treatment products can be minimized.

[0013]Another feature and advantage of the present invention is that the rate of flow of seeds through the system can be adjusted without compromising the quality of seed treatment. The seed flow rate can be manually adjusted using the system's control panel. When the seed flow rate is adjusted, the system automatically increases or decreases the fluid application rate from the pumps to accommodate the corresponding increase or decrease in seeds that are being treated. This prevents either under treating seeds or producing waste from applying excessive treatment products.

[0014]Another feature and advantage of the present invention is that existing seed treatment apparatuses can be retrofit with one or more elements of the disclosed invention to allow them to adjust the fluid application rate based on the volume of seeds to be treated.

Problems solved by technology

Post-planting application may not penetrate the soil to a level or location where it would be effective, is weather dependent, and may not be as economical as direct seed application.

Preplanting treatment of seeds, however, involves applications of chemicals and other agents that are expensive and may even be toxic to the environment and workers.

Such treatment apparatuses typically apply treatment products to the seeds at a uniform rate to each batch of seeds and cannot adjust application rate as circumstances dictate, such as, for example, upon a slowing of the feed rate to the seed treating equipment.

A significant amount of chemical waste can be generated by applying excess treatment products to batches of seeds without precise controls.

Because treatment products can be very expensive, e.g., hundreds of dollars per gallon, this can result in a large economic loss.

Such chemical waste can also result in an environmental hazard.

There is room for improvement of this methodology as such flow weight measurement is taken over a length of the seed flow and thus requires averaging and cannot readily accommodate dramatic seed flow interruptions or variance.

Moreover such equipment is expensive and not generally suitable for use at the retail level.

This is problematic with existing seed treaters with automatically adjusted treating controls as such are expensive and typically are not easily used for repeated and rapid processing small batches for individual users.

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