Bio-rope for greenhouse crops

Long description

According to the Food and Agricultural Organization, greenhouse farms produce about 20% of vegetables in Eastern Europe. The most economically important vegetable crops are tomatoes and cucumbers. Growing such tall crops in greenhouses necessarily includes the stage when plants should be trained with special ropes. Training technology increases productivity and allows to get high-quality products. There are several important aspects to using training ropes. On the one hand, such materials must have sufficient strength, resistance to UV, water, and chemicals for at least 1 season of crop cultivation. Natural fiber materials do not meet these requirements. On the other hand, it is obvious that the training materials remain in the soil, so they must be capable of biodegradation.

90% of greenhouse productions in our region (as well as the vast majority of EU greenhouse farms) use polyvinylchloride- and polypropylene-based ropes. These materials meet the operational requirements, but such ropes slowly decompose in the soil. Thus, there is a need for an additional stage of manual removal of ropes from the soil to avoid soil contamination.

We propose to create a bio-rope based on cellulosic material with a protective shell based on a biodegradable polymer that exhibits fungicidal properties. This shell will increase the retention of the initial strength of the rope while using it for tying up crops in the greenhouses. Also, we propose to treat the cellulose base of the rope with a complex of drugs that will promote biodegradation in natural conditions during composting of plant stems.

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