FR2632814A2 - Method for automated growing on movable extensile supports and equipment allowing it to be implemented - Google Patents

Abstract

The growing zones, of suitable shapes, are equipped with an intermittent movable lighting system, the lights 301 moving over circuits or tracks 300 in continous closed loops of overall curved shape but able to include straight parts, the lights always moving in the same direction without ever being given reciprocating movements. The illumination times for the plants and the intervals between the passage of the lights above one same plant are adjustable as desired and are constant, these times and intervals most often remain the same over the entire surface of one same cultivated zone, but may vary if desired. There are no limits to the length of the tracks. This lighting method may also be used for conventional growing, it may be simple top-up lighting or exclusively artificial lighting. The system for recycling floating granulates may consist of an Archimedes screw 310, or a conveyor belt with paddles 320 or a bucket chain.

Description

SELF-GROWING CULTURE PROCESS ON MOBILE EXTENSIBLE MEDIA AND
POUIPEKENTS PERZETTET ITS IMPLEMENTATION
The present invention relates to improvements made to the main patent which was the subject of filing N 84 - 04313 in FRANCS on 07 - 03 1984, a first additive N 85 - 03245 filed on 27 - 02 - 1985 and a second additive N 85 - 17625 filed on 22 - 11 - 1985, - and notably with regard to the artificial lighting of plants.

 Blle also concerns the procedures for recycling floating aggregates.

The object of the present invention is to make this mode of cultivation even more profitable and more effective by the use of an intermittent method of lighting plants with mobile luminaires moved on circuits forming continuous closed loops and therefore generally curvilinear forms, the luminaires always moving in the same direction and without ever being animated by reciprocating movements back and forth.

This process makes it possible to reduce investment costs and electrical consumption of lighting by several times and can therefore be profitably used for most market gardening, horticultural crops, potted plants etc, this in the case of greenhouse crops according to traditional methods but even more so in the case of cultures on mobile extensible supports which have been the subject of patent filing B 84-04313 and its additives.

This artificial lighting can constitute a simple supplement to the solar lighting during the periods of short days as well as during the very cloudy days, or completely replace the solar lighting for example in the case where the crop shelter is constituted by blind walls and in particular in the "Culture Tours"
This mobile lighting process always moving in the same direction reproduces, even if it is done in very strongly accelerated times, the movement of the sun between its rising and setting, that is to say that when the lights approach a - plant we are in the situation "sunrise with light rays relatively little inclined on the horizontal, then-we have an increasingly vertical and therefore overhead lighting, and finally in the phase of remoteness we find the conditions of the "sunset" of the sun, thus the active cells of the lower and upper sides of the leaves, whose functioning and yield have been optimized by several million years of natural adaptation, are lit in conditions closer to natural lighting and have a significantly better photosynthetic yield than in the case of fixed lighting.

Intermittent lighting processes, either by moving the lights, or by switching them off, have already been studied and described, and among others in patent N 2,545,320, in the LUX Lighting Review N 109 d ' October 1980; mobile light carts were produced, among others, by the Belgian company SCHREDER BV from before 1980, these studies relating to periods of illumination ranging from a few tens of seconds up to about one or two hours but in all cases studied and described the cultivation of plants is done in rectilinear flowerbeds, and the movements of the luminaires are also rectilinear, the luminaires traveling the length of a cultivated flowerbed then turning backwards on the same path in alternate comings and goings.

Therefore the time intervals separating the passage of the lamps plumb from the same point are very different depending on the situation of this point on the same flat strip.

So in the case of a flower bed 10 meters in length for example, and if the speed of movement of the luminaires is equal to 5 meters / minute, the lamps will pass, at the two ends of the bench and 0.75 meters for example from these ends, at the end of 0.75 x 2 / 5.00 = 0.3 minutes, that is to say every 18 seconds, on the other hand in the middle of the bench the lamps will pass over the same point after having traveled twice 5.00 m, i.e. 10.00 m, i.e. after 10.00 / 5.00 = 2 minutes.

We can thus see that the times separating two passes over the same point vary in considerable proportions and are, in places, multiplied by a factor of 2 / 0.3 = 6.66 and more, this means reducing the length flower beds at very low values so as not to have excessive disproportions in the times of passage above the same point, and therefore unacceptable variations in the conditions of the lighting of plants.

It is therefore very difficult under these conditions to optimize the times of illumination and non-illumination according to the needs of the plants, which result in significant yield losses and a significant increase in the cost of lighting.

The object of the present invention is to remedy these drawbacks by using an intermittent artificial lighting system for plants by movable luminaires (301), in which the preliminaries are movable on circuits or tracks (300) forming continuous closed loops , and therefore of generally curvilinear forms, but which may include rectilinear parts, the luminaires always moving in the same direction and without ever being animated with reciprocating movements back and forth.

This process can be used both on automated cultivation tanks and on traditional crops, this artificial lighting can be used both as an adjunct to solar lighting, and alone and without any contribution of sunlight.

The shapes of the cultivated areas and the lighting circuits are adapted to each other.

The main of these forms are shown in the accompanying drawings.

The lamps constituting this lighting system can be in large number, they are not grouped into a single movable assembly as a whole, but are distant from each other, either that they are isolated or arranged in pairs, or, very rarely, and in particular - when exceptionally intense lighting is required, arranged in groups of more than two.

It may indeed be advantageous to group, generally in pairs, lamps whose light characteristics, and in particular the distribution of the wavelengths emitted, are different in order to have an optimum overall light spectrum, for example by combining lamps high pressure mercury vapor - to high pressure sodium vapor lamps. For the same reason it is also possible to have successive, isolated lamps whose light emission characteristics are different.

In most cases these lamps are fitted with internal or external reflectors.

In all that follows the general term "Luminaire" (301) is used to designate either an isolated lamp or a group of lamps fixed with respect to each other.

Due to the closed loop design of the culture zones and trays, the movement of the luminaires takes place on tracks (300) also constituting closed loops, and this movement, instead of being straight and alternative and d '' consists of a succession of back and forth, becomes generally curvilinear and continuous and the time separating the passage, above the same point, of two lights following each other, is perfectly constant over the entire length of a track .

The length of the circuit traversed by a luminaire is not limited to low values as is the case when there is back and forth of the luminaires for the reasons indicated above, thus for example for a culture container of 30 meters diameter, the peripheral lamps will travel 30 xx = 94 meters before going back over the same point.

So it will suffice to calculate the spacing of the lights, on the same track, according to the speed chosen for their movement (which itself conditions the duration of the lighting period) and the length of the path to be traveled, to optimize , to the best of the needs of the plants, without any restriction and with great precision, the time intervals separating two consecutive periods of lighting, as well as the very duration of these periods of lighting which both will be automatically strictly constant.

Two main operating modes are described: either by adopting a constant and equal speed of movement of the luminaires along all the tracks and over the entire cultivated area, or by rotating all the luminaires at constant angular speed, therefore with varying speeds from one track to another.

These two operating modes can also be combined on the same area or on the same culture tank.

So for example, for a circular culture tank 30 meters in diameter, if we choose a constant speed of 4 m / minute over the entire surface of the tank and a time separating the passages above the same plant equal to 2 minutes, the spacing of the luminaires, on all the concentric tracks, from the center to the periphery and over the entire surface of the tank will be equal to 4 x 2 = 8.00 m.

The track furthest from the center, whose length is equal to 94 m, will be fitted with 94/8 = 12 lights. A track located mid-radius of the ferry will be 47 m long and will be equipped with 47/8 = 6 lights. A track located 2.50 m from the center, the length of which is equal to 8.00 m, will be equipped with 1 luminaire.

In this assumption of constant speed over the entire surface of the tank, the time taken by the same light source to make a full revolution of the tank will therefore vary throughout a radius, it will be maximum at the periphery <94/4 = 23 , 5 minutes) and minimum 2.00 m from the center (ô / 4 = 1.5 minutes).

Due to the fact that the tracks are - concentric, or almost concentric, and therefore of variable lengths, and that - they are traversed by luminaires animated with a constant speed, the luminaires are in perpetual displacement relative to each other between any track and its neighbors.

As a result, each track takes full advantage of the lateral lighting provided by the luminaires of the neighboring tracks and the resulting overall lighting for the plants is therefore always much higher than it is in the case of a rectilinear displacement with va and comes from light sources, in fact in this case the proportion of the lateral illumination lost is all the greater as the width of the culture bench as well as the number of lamps arranged on the same alignment perpendicular to the direction of movement are more great.

In the other operating mode, which can be used more particularly for circular culture zones and trays, all the luminaires are rotated with the same angular speed, for example by fixing all the luminaires on a single chassis rotating on the entire surface of the tank; if you want all the lights to make a full turn of the tank in 10 minutes for example, and the time between the passage of two lights following each other above the same plant is equal to 2 minutes, the speed on the track furthest from the center will be equal to 94/10 = 9.4 m / minute and the - lights will then be spaces of 9.4 x 2 = 18.8 m and there will be 94 / 18.8 = 5 luminaires on this track.

 At mid-radius the speed will be equal to 47/10 = 4.7 minutes and the lights will be spaced 4.7 x 2 = 9.4 meters and there will be 47 / 9.4 = 5 lights also on this track.

We see in this second example that the spacing of the luminaires on the same track increases from the center to the periphery and therefore that the light intensity supplied per unit of cultivated area decreases in the same proportion, but there is no no difficulty in tightening the tracks more on the areas where this is necessary or we can have on one or more tracks a larger number of luminaires. than the above calculation requires, in the latter case the passage time above a single plant, two lights following each other on the same track will be reduced.

It should be noted that this decrease in light intensity per unit area can be taken advantage of for the cultivation of a certain number of plants which require higher light intensities at the start of their growth, therefore when they are close from the center of the tank and where the luminaires are closest to each other and therefore the strongest light intensities.

It is also possible to use luminaires of different wattage according to the different areas of the tank for example by using lamps of 250 and 400 watts which are very common.

Ultimately the process is extremely flexible because one can play without any difficulty on the different parameters: speed and spacing on the same track, number of tracks and distances separating them, possible grouping of two or more luminaries in a single mobile assembly, unit power lamps etc., it is also possible to adopt variable speed of movement of the luminaires along the same track, for example in the case of cultivation of different plants on a cultivation surface served by the same network of luminaires .

Although the circular shape is the simplest if you want to benefit from the advantages of the process as indicated above, it is not the only one that can be used, indeed closed loop circuits, which can or - not have rectilinear parts, can be placed above areas and culture tanks, rectangular, square, elliptical or oval etc. as drawn, among others, in Figures N 1, 2, 3 and 4 attached hereto which are sufficiently understandable by themselves so as not to require any particular explanations.

The light displacement systems are not described here since they are means which have been known for a long time and that "light carts are already on the market, these carts can be self-propelled or grouped in groups of more or less important by cables, linkages etc ...,
Another subject of the invention relates to clarifications and improvements made to the main patent and to its two additives mentioned above, it relates to the recycling of aggregates in the culture variant on floating aggregates.

The aggregates recycling mode described in detail in the second additive involves the use of a vertical plate (136) and another inclined plate (137) (not illustrated here) working a bit like a ploughshare. plow to return the excess peripheral aggregates under the floating layer of aggregates or extract them from the tank, and other possibilities for recycling the aggregates are briefly mentioned; bucket chain, pallet conveyor belt, Archimedes screw .., although these are devices which have been known for a very long time, their use is new, it therefore appears useful to provide details on this subject.

The invention is set out below in more detail using diagrams and drawings.

 Whether it is a screw of 8 chimede, conveyor belts with pallets (preferably elastic and / or foldable) or chains with buckets, they are substituted for the two sheets (136,137) mentioned above and are fixed at the peripheral end of the rotating sector (130), not shown here, so as to graze the peripheral wall of the culture tank, their major axis is inclined to the horizontal by an angle of approximately 30 to 40 degrees preferably, their diameter or width are generally between about 0.5 and 2 decimeters, and are a function, as well as the speed of rotation, of the volume of aggregates to be recycled or extracted.

Both are rotated by any motor system, and preferably by an electric motor. A casing (311> can be provided to better guide the aggregates.

Depending on the operating mode of the installation, either with direct discharge of the aggregates under the floating layer, or with extraction of the aggregates and subsequent reinjection, it is possible to discharge the aggregates either downwards or upwards by reversing the direction motor rotation or by reversing the direction of inclination of the longitudinal axis.

The Archimedes screw with only one moving part - is particularly simple, robust, economical and effective.

Fig. 1 shows, in plan and seen from above, a culture tank or a culture area of circular shape with the tracks (300) on which the luminaires (301) move, the tracks form closed loops.

Fig. 2 shows, in plan and seen from above, a similar installation but of square shape with rounded angles, with the tracks- (300> forming closed loops and the mobile luminaires (301).

Fig. 3 shows, in plan and seen from above, a similar installation but of rectangular shape, with the tracks (300) forming closed loops and the mobile luminaires (301).

Fig. 4 shows, in plan and seen from above, a similar installation but of oval / elliptical shape, with the tracks (300) forming continuous loops and the mobile luminaires (301>.

Fig. 5 shows, in axial vertical section, a system for recycling floating aggregates by Archimedes screw (310) with a casing (311), inclines and parallel to the axis of the screw, either flat, or even better enveloping the screw on a part of its circumference but open widely on the front, and whose role is to guide and contain the aggregates between the turns of the screw, in order to increase the yield thereof.

Fig. 6 shows, in axial vertical section, a system for recycling floating aggregates by a pallet (320) or bucket conveyor.

All the preceding descriptions are given for information only and by way of example, they in no way limit the field of the invention from which one would not depart by replacing the details described by any other equivalent.

The present invention has the same, and even more general, agricultural, industrial, commercial and general public applications and relates to the same professions as the main patent and its first two additives.

Claims (10)

 1. Process of Automated Culture on Xobile Extensible Supports and Equipment allowing its implementation, relating to claim 1 of the main patent, in which an intermittent artificial lighting of the plants is used by mobile luminaires, characterized in that the luminaires C 391 301) are movable on circuits or tracks (300) forming continuous closed loops, and therefore of generally curvilinear shapes, but which may comprise rectilinear parts, it can be used both on automated culture tanks and on traditional cultures , it can be used both in supplemental lighting with solar lighting and alone and without any contribution of sunlight.  2. Culture method according to claim 1, characterized in that the length of the tracks (300) on which the luminaires (301) circulate is not limited,  3. Culture method according to claim 1, characterized in that the lights (301) always move in the same direction and without ever being driven in reciprocating movements back and forth.  4. Culture method according to claim 1, characterized in that it is possible to choose at will, independently of one another - and at any point whatsoever of the cultivated area, - the passage time of a luminaire (301), i.e. the useful lighting time of this point, at each of its passages above the same point, as well as the time separating the passage of two successive luminaires above 'd' the same point.  5. Culture method according to claim 1., characterized in that the times of passage of the luminaires (301) above the same point are constant when the speeds of movement, along the same track (300> are they same constants, but one can also adopt variable displacement speeds, and in this case the times of passage above the same point will also be different.  6. Culture method according to claim 1., characterized in that the overall shape of a cultivated surface and that of the circuits of the luminaires (301) illuminating it by moving over the same set of tracks (300) in closed loop, are adapted to each other, this cultivated surface can be composed either of a single surface of suitable shape, such as for example a circle or a polygon, or of a set of elementary surfaces of any shape, assembled in a together constituting a closed loop.  7. Culture method according to claim 1 characterized in that each mobile luminaire (301) is equipped with either a single lamp or two or more lamps, the powers and the light spectra of these lamps can be different in the same luminaire and from one luminaire to another.  8. Culture method according to claim 1., characterized in that the luminaires (301) are driven either by equal and constant speeds on all the tracks (300) covering the same cultivated area, or by variable speeds from one track to 1 'other and / or over the length of the same track, or else constitute a set animated with a constant angular speed, the luminaires, considered one by one, then have different linear speeds from one track to another.  9. Culture method according to claim 8., characterized in that these various operating modes can coexist on the same cultivated surface.  10. Culture method according to claim 1 of the main patent and 2 and 5 of the second additive to this main patent, characterized in that the systems for recycling or extracting aggregates at the periphery of the culture tanks are constituted by screws d 'Archimedes (310) or pallet conveyor belts (320) or bucket chains, a casing (311) parallel to their major axis can overcome them.