Free flowing fertilizer composition with enhanced deposition/anti drift characteristics

Abstract

A free-flowing fertilizer comprising: i) from 25 to 99.5% by weight of a powdered water soluble nitrogen containing fertilizer. ii) from 0.05 to 1.5% by weight of a polyacrylamide liquid emulsion / dispersion. iii) from 0.1 to 3.0% by weight of a polyacrylamide powder whose particle size is primarily 50 to 100 mesh in size.

Description

REFERENCE TO A RELATED APPLICATION[0001] This application claims the benefit of the priority application 60 / 176,617 which is relied on herein.INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND[0002] The present invention relates to a process and compositions for producing a free flowing fertilizer which exhibits enhanced deposition and anti drift characteristics.[0003] More particularly, the process of the present invention relates to controlling the particle size of the fertilizer to a range which is more course than a fine powder but finer than unprocessed material, spraying onto the presized fertilizer a liquid deposition agent, blending until homogeneous, and post adding other agents such as defoamers, anticaking agents, other deposition enhancement agents, surface active agents, dispersing agents, crystalline inhibitor agents, other sequestering agents, shear resistant anti drift agents and the like and screening out oversized particles if necessary.[0004] The use of fertilizers such as ammonium sulf...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Incorporating a liquid deposition agent onto a fertilizer component presents obstacles to overcome such as tackiness of the mixture, caking in the bag, scaling of the liquid deposition agent with the fertilizer resulting in particles which will not disperse readily in the spray tank or deactivation of the deposition agent and other agents.

When the polyacrylamide dry particles are hydrated, if they are not very small initially, they will swell to form "fish eyes" which can block in line screens and nozzles resulting in pressure buildup in the system and spotty spray patterns.

Agricultural pesticides prior to spraying often benefit from specific additives to the spray mix which provide functionality that is either not possible or practical as commercial pesticide formulations.

Off target drift and enhanced deposition of pesticide containing spray droplets has been an industry issue for many years.

Without using good drift management techniques, it is possible to injure or kill young growing corn plants with off target drift containing glyphosate.

Off target drift effects performance of pesticides as the portion which drifts away is not effective on the proper target.

This loss of pesticide activity impacts the farmer negatively with reduced crop yields.

Droplets smaller than 150 microns are highly susceptible to drift.

Droplets larger than 400 microns represent reduced coverage and therefore reduced pesticide efficiency.

Traditional polyacrylamide dry systems are very sensitive to shear and show substantially reduced performance as the tank mix is recirculated through the pumping system.

This is too large a particle to coat with a liquid of any significant concentration because the resultant mixture will tend to be sticky and not hold up to storage without forming lumps in the bags.

The resultant mixture may be difficult to pour out and may not disperse readily.

Increased recirculation / agitiation results in larger numbers of passes through the pump.

However, when added to the spray mix these powders form instant gels which will not disperse properly and will clog up screens and nozzles.

However, 41A FG is less efficient as a drift management component.

Also, the dilution reduces the effectiveness of the polymer and requires substantially more polymer (3.times.) to achieve comparable results in drift control.