Plant Hacks-A Complete Tree Health Management System

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Electronics

The land cultivated for decades to centuries have already lost the natural fixated minerals & currently relied on fertilizers. The current methods of soil mixing, sprays are environmentally challenging due to volatilty, leeching effects of chemical compounds in fertilizers/pesticides causing 40% direct wastage which ends up in the atmosphere, lakes, residues. These stats are for California almonds alone, 0.32 kg CO2 equivalent (CO2e) per kg of almond kernel, fertilizer production: 0.11 kg CO2e per kg of almond kernel, fertilizer transport: 0.01 kg CO2e per kg of almond kernel, fertilizer application:0.02 kg CO2e per kg of almond kernel, soil N2O emission: 0.16 kg CO2e per kg of almond kernel. Florida, NC Citrus tree estimated nitrogen around 153 million pounds/year, P-K usage around 51 million Pounds/y. In America, 13% of GHE contributions are from tree markets distributed for horticulture fruits, nuts, urban, commercial trees North American farmers are expected to use an additional 300,000 tons of NPK to meet previous yields and fertilizer use surpassed 200 MT in 2018 and are expected to grow by 3.7 percent, 2.7 percent & 4.2 percent per annum. These fertilizers and solutions are constituents of chemical elements which causes environmental toxification and direct harm to life forms due to volatility and also increasing soil pH, disturbing soil micro ecosystem with leaching effects. It is time we address this problem at root level and create an scientific, sustainable way of tree nutrient management.

Our method is complete tree nutrient & health management system executed in most scientific way correlating tree hydraulic physiology & anatomy. To supply solutions from single site with incision & stenting our kit into xylem tissue and distribute axially & radially covering the entire canopy of tree. The transport of solutions axially is like pumping, biomimicking all hydraulic parameters of transpiration, cohesion-tension by Poiseuille flow compensated by micro motor pumping which is achieved with Arduino controller. The main R&D in this innovation is to attain radial distribution across the circumference of the tree where interxylem distribution cannot be easily engineered. We work with electrochemical or thermo osmosis, atomizer pumping methods to achieve radial distribution and CFD for microfluidic modeling. The kit proposed has a circular array of micro needles which gets seated into the xylem tissue, installed at drill depth of DBH/3 and the diameter of hole/drill bit is to be 5-10 mm wrt species. To install the above circular micro needle module designed with bio compatible material to align with tree tissues we use linear to radial translation mechanisms like Hoberman model and the circular ring with microneedles array will be stented into xylem tissues in horizontally & vertically and stays there. This module is controlled by an embedded systems module which implements all the functionalities to achieve distribution. The control panel to enable farmer supply solutions in dosages and flow rates wrt specie, age,viscosity of solution, susceptibility, etc. This innovation can become the future for horticulture, commercial tree markets for environmentally & economically sustainable tree health micro management.

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  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Sri Lakshmi Bhavani Nandamuri
  • Type of entry:
    individual
  • Software used for this entry:
    Autodesk Inventor,COMSOL
  • Patent status:
    pending