in agriculture -
Our tuff laboratories practice drilling, screening, grinding, loading, tearing, processing and gradient work, and conducting phased research to develop them, in order to identify the multiple aspects of the uses of volcanic tuff in agriculture and construction work, and we, with the help of local and international research institutes, universities and pioneering private sector farmers who used tuff several years ago We will be able to support the promising results obtained locally in flower farms and various ornamental plants, which will be generalized to seasonal and field crops, vegetables and fruits, whether they are protected or open, in light of the results obtained in European countries that have proven an agricultural production that increases About seven times the yield in normal and even fertile soils .
The methods of using tuff for cultivation are summarized as follows :
Tuff is used Kfrh isolated farming ( isolated from the ground ) where it is grown flowers and roses with a view to Reaching specifications acceptable to the global stock exchange, i.e. agriculture for export .
Cultivation in environmental potted plants for all types of ornamental plants and multi-cut flowers with international specifications .
Growing vegetables and field crops, whether in protected areas or open fields .
Growing fruit trees such as apples, grapevines, manga and others .
Cultivation of medicinal and herbal plants .
Sports turfs and running tracks .
Industrial uses, such as in the manufacture of lightweight concrete buildings and bricks .
As weatherproof and insulating layers in shelters, as protective bedding for piping installations, and as pressurized and absorbent layers in tennis courts .
It is used in mixtures of producing fruit seedlings and ornamental plants, in specific and specific proportions with peat moss and perlite, knowing that mixtures of tuff alone have also proven remarkable results in the production of seedlings .
It is used in the purification of natural gas .
It is used to treat animal waste .
Useful material in animal feed .
Treatment of industrial wastewater and sewage .
Use in nuclear power plants .
Drying of wet grains and anti-aging materials in fertilizer stores .
Cement and building materials industry .
Methods of agriculture by the Tove Volcanic :
As mentioned above, tuff is used as bedding for growing varieties of roses, vegetables, flowers and trees, and there is an ideal way to use it with every product, and the methods differ according to the product requirements, and among these methods can be summarized as follows :
1- Engraved canals method :
This method is particularly suitable for planting roses in greenhouses and outdoors alike. It is recommended that before digging the canals, the farmer be sure that the designated surface is inclined in one direction and of at least 1.5% . And make their channels while maintaining the inclination ratio of the abovementioned width ranges from 60-70 cm and a depth ranging between 20-30 cm, and here we would like to point out that agriculture and channels in this way can be applied in two ways :
1- The natural ground isolated method by wrapping the duct with plastic strips .
2- Connected roads without insulation separating the soil of the mother earth and the tuff .
( And in this method there is no inclination requirement )
The canal is supplied with two types of different sizes of tuff ( coarse, soft ) , and coarse tuff is placed at the bottom at a height of 20-25% of the depth of the canal, and it has a size ranging between (4-14 mm ) and its function is to drain the excess water from the need of the plant as it seeps by the tendency The aforementioned to the drain hole at the end of the agricultural lines; Excess irrigation water is disposed of outside the greenhouses to irrigate fruit trees .
The packaged upper part of the channel Baltov size of ( zero -8 mm ) so as to provide the required agricultural center .
The advantages of this method are low costs and ease of cleaning, whether for the tuff itself as an agricultural medium for plants, or for the used house .
2- Cultivation with styroform vessels :
It is used for all types of soil based crops and is especially good for plants sensitive to soil diseases .
This method is simple and easy to implement, and it is preferable to place the tuff of coarse size (4-14) at the bottom of the pot, and volume ( 0-8 ) in the growing layer of the Stuurform pot . In order for the water to be drained outside the greenhouse, the trends must be followed as mentioned in Method No. (1) above . As we mentioned, the coarse tuff serves to collect excess water from the plant’s need to drain it .
This method is characterized by the fact that the greenhouse incubating the vessels is environmentally prepared and pure and has a low sensitivity to water drainage outside the greenhouse, in addition to the fact that separating plants by planting them in separate vessels prevents the transmission of soil diseases among plants, and that by spreading as a result of plant contact through the soil. The extent of the effect of salinity ( if any ) on plants .
3- Cultivation with containers made of semi-plastic Mobal or Polygal panels : -
These containers are formed from the plates ( slices ) of Mobal or Polygal by brushing them in the sanctuary or the greenhouse, and then raising their sides in length to form a vessel in the shape of a letter(U) It extends from the beginning of the house to its end, and services are separated between them, so that one house contains several rows of these vessels, that raising or folding the vessels to form the sides is basically specific dimensions, and it can be carried out depending on the desire of the farmer and the type of agriculture and its density while making sure that the sides are present ( Walls ) To ensure they do not open by using iron wire straps or straps at the bottom of the container .
Place the coarse tuff (14-14) at the bottom of the bowl while the ( planting medium ) is at the top .
The features of this method in addition to the advantages enjoyed by the way agriculture receptacles that Alstarform pots manufacturer price on the greenhouse in this way is less expensive and ensure greater flexibility in the work as well as low - cost unit agricultural area ( dunum ).
4- Free Cultivation Without Walls ( Free Farms ):
It is recommended to use this method for all types of flowers, in addition to the need to focus on ensuring that the floor slopes of the channels are not less than 2% at least, in order to ensure the drainage of water outside the greenhouse, and to obtain rapid drainage in the planting bed, the center or the beginning of the pouring can be raised ( according to the system followed in Drainage ) by 5-7 mm, and this height can be created by using cheap local soil or marine sand, with the necessity to emphasize that the path between one poured out and another is also inclined to ensure the exit of water from the drain, but if the tuff mattress is to be separated from the ground For reasons related to the condition or quality of the mother land used, one of the following two methods can be followed :
Using a regular plastic sheet that is placed on the ground as a mattress separating the tuff from the bottom of the pouring spill .
Use brushes made of polystyrene or mobal strips, making sure that these, in turn, have slopes within the limits mentioned above .
In this method, tuff is placed in foundries with a height of 15-20 cm depending on the type of cultivation required, and the features of this method are summarized as follows :
Flexibility to diversify and exchange crops in successive seasons .
Ease of handling and speed of implementation without the need for much preparation .
Significantly reduced expenses .
Ease of cleaning and disinfection .
5- Cultivation in plastic buckets and bags :
This method is recommended for one-time crops such as Telegernium and various vegetables, and this method is characterized by the low cost of cultivation, as the prices of bags and buckets are reasonable and the buckets can be used for many times, in addition to the fact that the amount of brushes is less than 35 cubic meters per acre .
The separation between the plants as a result of planting in bags or buckets separate prevent contamination of plant root disease ( Kalpndorh ) and is recommended to use the size of the tuff ( zero -8 mm ).
6- Agriculture without isolation from the soil :
This method provides the roots with the possibility of penetrating the tuff layer and extending and branching into the natural land, thus agriculture has the advantages of cultivating with tuff and fixing or clinging to the ground, and this method is recommended for many field ornamental plants such as safari and wax flower, as well as in commercial plants such as fruit trees such as apples and bananas whose cultivation has achieved great results In terms of type and quantity .
In this method, tuff is not seen as a separate bed, but rather as a growth and improvement factor for the species for the following reasons :
The tuff creates an additional aeration environment in the root zone .
It strengthens basic solubility and facilitates easy absorption of trace elements .
It maintains the soil temperature due to its porosity that contains a volume of air that is considered to be a heat insulator .
As an overall result of the effect of tuff in agriculture in general, and whatever the methods used in its uses, as was detailed above, we see that tuff with its various uses has added a new dimension by transforming part of the production in agriculture into an economic industry that left its mark on agricultural production, in terms of quantity and quality . By owning the tuff, the farmer would have acquired an infrastructure that worked for many years with flexibility that was not easy to obtain without using tuff . In addition to this, the cost of irrigation water and fertilization is saved, as a result of the properties of the tuff that retains moisture and the fertilizers in it are in excess of the plants' need to return them to him when he needs them .
It is in this case a clean and efficient warehouse easy to deal with in all circumstances .
The importance of tuff as an agricultural medium :
Interest in industrial agricultural media began to grow with the beginning of the eighties, and most of this interest was concentrated in the economically developed countries, despite the urgent need to seize the benefits of these media and take advantage of their impressive effects on agricultural production in quantity and quality in the developing countries .
Perhaps the reason for this was that the developed countries had economic capabilities capable of pursuing research and spending on it until reaching results that would ensure high local production that compensated for the small size of the area available for cultivation in relation to the number of people, which in turn forced them to import many agricultural products to cover their food needs .
In addition, the high cost of labor coupled with the increase in the standard of living therein in general, and then the increase in the demand for these products, which increased the interest of these countries in searching for relatively low-cost means and means that have an effective impact on both qualitative and quantitative productivity .
Perhaps the focus on this goal is what has led some Middle Eastern countries that have the financial capabilities to spend on such a development to make every effort to benefit from the results reached by the developed countries with an emphasis on keeping the cost as low as possible .
By the end of the eighties, the problem of availability of quantities of water needed for dedicated human use had begun to leave its imprint on some of these countries to the extent that it negatively affected the mere thought of expanding agricultural areas, which were considered a major source of income for the individual and the state’s income in general, as agricultural exports were a source not Underestimated hard currency, according to the volume of agricultural exports .
Accordingly, it was necessary to search for a radical solution that includes two main conditions :
1- Saving the quantities of water consumed in agriculture .
2- Increase production to cover the needs of the local market and maintain foreign markets without the need to increase the area of agricultural land . Here, the importance of volcanic tuff emerged as an industrial hydroponic soil that scientific and practical experiments showed that it has properties that cover the requirements of these two basic conditions. Tuff has the following advantages :
1) A small amount of water consumption, despite the plant’s need for a greater number of daily irrigation, until the required water savings in some cases reached 50%.
2) A greater amount of production, in some cases, reached 7 times the production in the natural lands and even the fertile ones .
3) Save additional water and fertilizer for consumers of the need to cultivate tuff, to modern methods of irrigation and injection to ensure the success of cultivation .
4) Save on the labor costs required for agriculture as a result of the use of modern irrigation and injection techniques and software, which compensates for the many times the increase in spending on modern technologies in the long run .
5) Save on the costs of insect control because tuff is a volcanic material that is not degradable in the soil and an agricultural environment less attractive to pests, in addition to being easy to sterilize, clean and drain if it occurs and is contaminated .
6) Save at the time of the supervisory body as a result of the use of modern irrigation and fertilization methods, which gives room for engineers and specialized supervisors to allocate more time for development and scientific research, which will benefit the public for the agricultural operations as a whole .
7) Greater flexibility in agriculture for easy transfer from crop to crop according to successive agricultural seasons and without the need for many steps to prepare and treat the soil, as volcanic tuff has proven its validity without much effort for more than 15 years .
The exorbitant expenditures required to be invested in order to maintain a neutral environment for the natural agricultural environment are wasted and will not be successful if the needs of the environment surrounding the root group of plants are ignored .
The most important step that an advanced person can go through in the scientific fields of agriculture is to weave and detail the environment required for the plants in detail as required by the type of plants and their needs, so that this provides the ideal environment to be planted . Sansen's results of many scientific research in the fields of agriculture have been placed at the disposal of the farmer to benefit from them, and he could not without resorting to mediation to ensure the provision of an appropriate or ideal environment, especially with regard to the root group, where experiences have shown that the industrial environment (such as the Tuff ) is the best chance to ensure success .
We cannot fail here to note that the economic factor or economic feasibility of investing in agricultural fields ( a topic that receives top priorities has begun to impose volcanic tuff as the best solution to create a suitable root environment for crops within the narrow limits of the required expenditures due to the advantages it enjoys above .
In the past, and to this day, the use of organic materials capable of rapid degradation became common. (Compost & Manure), In addition to other materials that are more resistant to degradation, (Peat)And sometimes, granular organic materials such as sand or a mixed mixture of these components are added to them . Undoubtedly, this has proven its effectiveness even though it is not without many disadvantages because they are unstable mixtures that change in their data according to the extent of the decomposition that forces them to change within a relatively short period of time. Soil mixtures, and the soil itself is a dynamic system in which the property changes according to This results in the inability of the soil to provide the roots of plants with the necessary ventilation, and thus the difficulty of controlling irrigation and supplying food, which may cause suffocation of plants .
The industrial medium for cultivation (such as tuff ) , if it is strengthened by modern purification methods in irrigation and injection with fertilizer provides the solution, as it maintains good moisture content with low surface pressure correlated with high and constant root ventilation, it weighs between 770-850 kg per cubic meter if What was dry, depending on the size of the particles that make up the elite (the size of the tofi mixture ) of the agricultural . As for the case
Its pressure, it weighs 2.8 grams per square centimeter, and this in turn means that every cubic meter of tuff used as an industrial medium for cultivation contains (650-750) liters of air hidden in the spaces between the tuff particles that make up the synthetic mattress, and this in itself is several times larger. Of the times the air in regular, well-ventilated soil . The tuff allows for greater freedom of gas exchange and thus gives greater ease of cleaning and disinfection if necessary . In addition, even the smallest particles of tuff mixes used in agriculture ( volume from 0-8 ) store at least 350 liters of water in each cube of the tuff mixture before the plant takes its maximum need of water during the irrigation process . Whereas, the waxed medium keeps water after irrigation with a quantity of not less than 300 liters of air .
Research conducted at the research centers have shown that the size of tuff & Nuts ( zero -8 mm ) Enjoy(Withering Point) The amount is 10%.
Important note : (Withering Point) It is a measure of the amount of water that can be present in a unit weight of agricultural medium after the farmer takes his water needs .
Accordingly, it is well established that there is an abundant amount of stored water that the tuff supplies for cultivation in it, and it is in the range of 150-250 liters per cubic meter of normal moisture tuff not shortly after the end of the irrigation process . This amount is much greater than the quantities that can be provided by normal soil .
General methods for the uses of tuff inside greenhouses : -
Planted flowers, and roses harvest crops and vegetative seasonal usually in Tove of the progressive size ( zero -8 mm ) and be the ideal thickness of Tove within 20 cm, and placed in containers of Albolestirin foam , whether isolated them from the mother soil or non - isolated . The plastic house space rate to accommodate the container packaging Tove be in the range of 1000 m 2 for each 600 m 2 occupied pots, while it is an area of 400 m 2 free services and roads inside the greenhouse, but if placed tuff in the floor of direct channels, and whether it was isolated from the soil or Isolated, it is preferable that the width of the channels is between 20-30 cm and a depth of between 20-25 cm, so that the layer of it is of 10-20 mm .
The drip irrigation method is used to irrigate agriculture and it is recommended that the irrigation network be controlled by an automatic irrigation regulator linked to a fertilizer injector .
All crops with shallow root spreads, such as strawberries and many vegetables, can be grown even on concrete surfaces or rocky lands, after being covered with a layer of tuff with a height of not less than 20-30 cm .
This applies to palms to cover large areas, even if the floors are concrete or rocky, after being covered with a layer of tuff, as mentioned above .
* Properties of tuff from the red ( zero -10 mm ): -
pottery (Clay) 0.30%
Celt (Silt) 1.80%
sand (Sand) 13.30%
Partial density ( Partcle Density) 2.87 g / cm 3
Aggregate density(Bulk Density) G / cm 3 0.89 g / cm 3
porosity (Porosity) 96,000%
Surface area qualitative (Specific surface area) 3.800 mm 2 / g
* Cultivation with tuff in hydroponic containers .Hydroponic Cultivation): -
Houseplants are grown inside hydroponic vessels containing tuff with a coarse size at the bottom and soft at the top with ease, and all we need in this case are encapsulated containers filled with washed tuff, a moisture meter, and a special simple fertilizer regulator, and this cultivation has many advantages, the most important of which are :
There is no need for a special method of disbursement .
The container can be placed anywhere in the home without fear of getting the carpet or surrounding environment wet .
The method of plant care is very easy .
Plants are watered according to moisture meter data once a week or even twice every three weeks .
Fertilizer is supplied to the plant once or twice throughout the year, at most .
Any plant can be grown in an infinitesimally small pot, provided it is supported for fear of falling into the event that the plant is heavy and heavy .
Coarse tuff of 10-20 mm in size can be used in this way without the slightest reservation and without additives of any kind to the tuff used as a hydrophonic medium .