FI93790B - Methods and apparatus to prevent the movement of insects - Google Patents

Description

93790

The present invention relates to a method for preventing or inhibiting the propagation of insects moving in the ground, parts of biological plants, buildings or the like, wherein a mechanical barrier in the form of a material composition comprising a large number of fibers or filaments is placed in an insect path. The invention also relates to a barrier arrangement.

10 There are several cases where it is necessary to prevent insects from advancing to certain places. For example, insect attack on forest plants, especially small and newly planted ones, can cause major damage and incur significant costs. The same is true for insect attack on garden plants and the like. Insects can cause damage or discomfort in other contexts 15, for example when ants roam their homes.

The insects that cause the most damage to forest plants and trees often move along the ground and up the plant. Some insects remain in the plant only for a certain part of the day and have to climb up and down along the stem of the plant 20 several times during the day. Logs in particular are able to cause great damage to conifers. In this context, it has been found that forest seedlings have a much better chance of healthy growth if they are enclosed in mechanical insect shelter after planting. The purpose of this protection is to prevent tukldmie peas from reaching the plant.

25 Hitherto, for that purpose, a shield has been used, marketed as the Vinetta sock, which comprises a monofilament sock which completely surrounds the plant. A similar shield sold under the name PUM comprises a plastic film which is wrapped around the plant to encapsulate it substantially in its entirety.

30 The second cover is sold under the name Teknokragen and consists of a tunnel-shaped plastic cover which surrounds the lower part of the plant and has a collar which extends around the upper edge of the tunnel-like part.

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The common purpose of all the above-mentioned shelters is to prevent loggers from reaching vital parts of the plant, primarily the trunk, even if the loggers are able to climb along the shelters.

5 The above-mentioned shelters have been used to a relatively large extent in forestry work. However, experience shows that the costs of these shelters are relatively high, mainly due to the high workload required to install shelters on plants. As a result, efforts have been made to provide a rational method that would allow shelters to be placed on plants before the plants 10 leave the nursery. To date, no practical and successful technology has been proposed.

Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a technique which, if necessary, prevents the propagation of insects and which can be set rationally and at low cost and which is to be preferred over previous solutions in terms of environmental care and protection. The present invention is based on the finding that insects become frightened and escape when they come in contact with thin, flexible and filamentous fibers. This may be because insects mix such fibers with natural spider webs. In this regard, tests have been performed on 20 loggers, in particular which, on contact with a wool-like accumulation of loose fibers, immediately turn and move in the other direction unless entangled in the fibers in the process, as the fibers tend to adhere to insect legs, torso and tentacles. Studies have shown that of other insects, ants, aphids, and lice respond in the same 25 ways.

A method as described in the first paragraph of this client is known according to the invention for the use of flexible filamentary fibers loosely placed together or loosely joined together to provide a material composition to be treated so that an insect which comes into contact with the material can experience the fibers of a spider. as wires in the network and thus become hanged.

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Thus, when it is desired to protect a forest seedling, the fibers are placed around the plant or the lower part of the plant is covered with a fibrous material. A layer of fibrous material can be placed around the trunk of a larger tree to prevent insects from climbing the tree. Similarly, the propagation of ants can be prevented or reduced by placing 5 strips of fibrous material across the path traveled by the ants.

The invention is thus based primarily on the toxic effect that loose fibers have been found to have on insects.

From a processing point of view, it is most preferred, inter alia, to place the fibers in a pre-treated wool-like or felt-like composition comprising fibers loosely spaced together or loosely joined together.

To protect biological seedlings against insect attacks, it is most preferred to wrap at least the lower portions of each seedling with fibrous material in the nursery. This can be achieved by placing the seedlings in a corresponding tube reserved for this purpose and feeding the fibrous material through the wall of the tube while rotating the seedling relative to the wall of the tube.

According to a most preferred embodiment of the invention, a flexible tube is used, wherein the part of the tube in which the seedling is placed can be rotated swingingly, which causes the seedling to rotate with respect to the wall of the tube.

To this end, in order to place the seedling in the tube rationally and without damaging the seedling 25, it is most advantageous to draw the seedling into the tube while sucking while moving the lower end of the tube in a circular path so that the center of the track is substantially in the center.

The fibers used must be very thin, suitable splits being between 1 · 100 30 microns and preferably 10-25 microns.

4,93790

Other features of the invention are set out in the following claims.

The invention will now be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Figures 1-3 show different uses of an insect repellent according to the invention.

. Figure 4 schematically shows an apparatus for applying a fiber cover according to the invention to forest seedlings.

Figures 4 and 5 show parts of the device shown in Figure 4 in different stages of operation.

Figure 1 shows a garden wedge around which a layer of fibrous material 2 is placed after planting a trout. The fibrous material consists of very thin, strong and yarn-like fibers or filaments, for example polypropylene yarns. However, other plastics can be used, such as polyethylene and PVC. The fibers are loosely placed together or loosely joined together to provide a wool-like or felt-like composition to be treated. The fibers must also be flexible and are suitably cut to one or two centimeters in size and placed in a non-frozen setting. The thickness of the fibers may vary depending on the type of insect protection, although the thickness of the fibers is most preferably in between. 1-100 microns. Good results have been obtained in experiments in which the thickness of the fibers used was between 10 and 25 microns.

The above experiments showed that an insect that comes in contact with such fibrous material is bent and turned away. This is possibly due to the fact that when in contact with discrete fibers that are not tightly woven together, the insect instinctively feels that the fibers represent danger, for example, they may be considered a spider web or a spider web. The fibrous material according to the invention has also been found to catch insects coming into contact with it, since the thin fibers adhere firmly to the hairs and hook-like projections of the insect bodies, thus causing the insects to entangle in the fibrous material 93790 5, preventing them from releasing themselves.

The plastic fibrous material that can be used in accordance with the present invention is very inexpensive because it may consist of a material used, for example, as a padding or the like, or as a wool-like material for liquid-absorbent products such as disposable diapers and the like. The material according to the invention also has the advantage that it biodegrades more rapidly in the soil than, for example, previously used plastic materials due to the small thickness of the individual fibers.

Figure 2 shows the use of a ring 3 of fibrous material according to the invention around a tree trunk 4 in order to prevent insects from climbing up along the trunk.

Figure 3 shows a forest dough which, before planting and most preferably in a nursery, is provided with a fibrous material cover 6 at least around the lower part of the seedling. The thickness of Kui-15 nuclear material can range from 0.1 to 3 cm and most preferably extends down and slightly below the surface of the earth because some insects attack the bark of plant roots. The advantages obtained by wrapping or packaging the seedling with a fibrous material to protect the seedling from insect attacks, in particular from insect attacks, include the following advantages in addition to the primary advantages set out above.

Since the wool-like material 6 is white in color, the plant is easily separated in its environment. This is especially important when planting forest seedlings in terrain that has not been cultivated, as the person planting the seedlings must see where the plants have previously been planted.

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As a result of the reflectivity of the fibrous material, the light flux to the bark and to the plant body is reduced. This reduces the physiological re-adaptation that the seedling normally has to undergo after planting, because when the seedling is replanted, it is unexpectedly exposed to a large amount of light in an open place after being stored and transported in a relatively dark environment. This sudden exposure of 6,93790 to light can contribute to stress in the photosynthesis process, which is thus alleviated by the fibrous material.

The structure of the fibrous material also reduces the movement of wind around the seedling, which in turn reduces the degree of drying of the needles of such seedlings and thus reduces the water stress that normally affects freshly planted seedlings. Temperature fluctuations around the seedling are also reduced, thus protecting the seedling from nocturnal frosts, which can often be a serious problem for freshly planted seedlings.

The fibrous material according to the invention can also be placed in such a way that the upper tumors of the plant and, to some extent, also the side tumors can develop despite the protection.

Figure 4 shows a device by means of which the seedling shown in Figure 3 is wrapped or wrapped with a fibrous material according to the invention. The device comprises a long flexible tube 7 which is movable in the longitudinal direction to allow the tube to be lowered over the trout 8. The seedlings are grown very close to each other in a suitable type of pot or container 9 associated with a large seedling growing cassette. At the upper end of the pipe there is a connecting line 10 connected to the source of suction power and a connecting line 20 19 connected to the source of compressed air. Both connections include a throttle valve or throttle flap 11.

Reference numeral 12 denotes an eccentric mechanism which, when the lower end of the tube is held in place, acts to cause the central portion 25 of the flexible tube 7 to make a rotating oscillating movement. Reference numeral 13 is schematically indicated. a described detector, for example a mechanical switching device or a switch, a photocell or the like, which detects the passage of the trout 8. Reference numeral 14 denotes a suitable auxiliary device for feeding the support base 15 into the tube 7. The tube is further provided with a slit-like opening 16 through which the wool-like fibrous material 30 can be fed into the tube. This fibrous material is fed into the tube by means of a plate-like tool or the like having an area slightly smaller than the area of the slot 16.

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The device according to the invention operates in the following way. The tubes 7 are lowered over the trout 8 and on the rim 9 at the top of the pot while the connection 10 to the suction power source is opened, and the compressed air connection is closed, see Fig. 5A. When the tube has reached the edge of the pot 9, the seedling and its root clump are sucked up into the tube 7 5, see Fig. SB. This is facilitated by the fact that the bottom of the pot is torn, so air enters the pot. When the seedling passes the detector 13, Fig. 5C, the detector. in return it moves the support base 15 into the pipe and at the same time sends a signal to the members controlling the valve 11 to cut off the suction from the pipe. When the suction is cut off, the seedling together with its root pile 17 falls down to the base of the support 15.

The file-like fibrous material 18 is then fed through a slot 16 in the wall of the tube until contact with the trout needles is made and the eccentric mechanism 12 is actuated. As a result, the part of the tube 7 in which the seedling is placed is subjected to a rotating, oscillating motion as shown in Figures 5D and 5E. The centrifugal force produced by this movement forces the plant and its root pack 17 against the wall 15 of the tube 15. due to the rolling motion between the walls. Additional fibrous material is then drawn through the slot 16 and wrapped around the trout. The wool-like fibrous material can be taken from the carding machine in rolls formed by thin layers of nonwoven fibers, the layers being mutually separated in rolls by plastic film strips.

Preferably, the length of any single fiber is not sufficient to surround the trout, as such long fibers would strangle the trout later.

When enough material has been wrapped around the seedling, for example two turns, the eccentric mechanism 12 is stopped and the support base 15 is pulled out while opening the connection to the compressed air source 10. The seedling 8 is thus forced down into its pot, see Fig. 5F. The tube 7 is then lifted to remove the trout around which the material of the invention is wrapped, Fig. 5F, and the tube 7 is moved to a position above the next trout to repeat the process described above.

30 When the seedlings are grown very close to each other in individual growing seedling cassettes, and when the diameter of the green part of the seedling is larger than the diameter of the top of the pot 8 93790 and has consequently grown inside adjacent plants, it is usually not possible to move the tube 7 immediately over the selected seedling without damaging the seedling.

However, this problem can be solved by moving the lower end of the tube in a circular path to the center of the track, located substantially at the center of the trout, while the tube 7 is lowered towards the pot at the same time as the suction power connection 11 is open. This method is illustrated in Figures 6A-F.

Experiments with this method, using both the suction effect of the tube and the rotational movement of the tube head, have shown that it is possible to lower the tube around a trout that is substantially wider than the inner diameter of the tube without damaging the seedling. This makes it possible to provide the seedlings with the insect protection according to the invention in a fully automatic process already in the nursery, which provides important advantages in terms of cost, among other things.

The invention has been described above with reference to an exemplary embodiment shown in the accompanying drawings. It is to be understood, however, that this embodiment may be modified in many respects without departing from the concept of the invention, and within the scope of the claims. For example, the insect repellent of the invention may be used in other contexts, for example, the fibrous material of the invention may be placed on the path of ants or over areas infested with ants to prevent ants from moving. The method and apparatus for placing the protective fibrous material around the seedlings can be modified if desired.

25 For example, the method used may be a fully automated method or a semi-automatic method.

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Claims (9)

A method for preventing the movement of insects moving on the ground, plant parts, buildings or the like, wherein a mechanical barrier comprising a material consisting of a large number of thin fibers is placed in the path of the insects, characterized in by the use of flexible, triple-like fibers which are joined together or bonded loosely to a manageable material, such that an insect coming into contact with the separate flexible fibers in the material is deterred by it. A method according to claim 1, intended for the protection of plant plants against insect infestation, characterized in that at least the lower part of each plant is wrapped in said fiber material. Method according to claim 2, characterized in that the plants are inserted into a pipe and the fiber material is fed through the pipe wall while the respective plant is caused to rotate relative to the pipe wall. Method according to claim 3, characterized in that a flexible pipe is used and that part of the pipe in which the plant is located is imparted a rotary pivotal movement which causes the plant to rotate relative to the pipe wall. Method according to claim 3 or 4, characterized in that the plants are sucked up into the pipe while the lower end of the pipe moves in an orbit with the center substantially in the center of the plane. Apparatus for preventing the movement of insects moving on the ground, plant parts, buildings or the like in the form of a mechanical obstacle intended for placement in the insects' path comprising a material consisting of a large number of thin fibers, characterized in that the material ( 2; 6; 18) comprise flexible, triple-like fibers loosely joined or joined to a manageable material, such that an insect coming into contact with the separate, flexible fibers in the barrier material is deterred by it. Device according to claim 6, characterized in that the thickness of said fibers is in the range 1 - 100 μΐη, preferably in the range 10 - 5 μιη. 8. Device according to claim 6 or 7, characterized in that the fibers are made of an organic degradable material. Device according to any one of claims 6-8, characterized in that the fibrous material (6; 18) has such a structure that it can be applied to it to protect an insect against insect attack by a winding operation.