Patent Application
20190261578
The present invention pertains generally to date-bunch covers, and particularly to a cover that encapsulates the bunch, protects the dates from rain, excludes insects and birds, allows aeration of the fruit cluster, and provides partial shade.
Banana growers worldwide use a protective cover made of light-weight polyethylene spunbond nonwoven fabric to exclude dust and insects, and to shade the banana bunch, while providing sufficient vapor permeability for offgassing of the fruit. (U.S. Pat. Appl. No. 20040062892) The cover accelerates ripening, increases bunch weight, and improves fruit quality by lowering the temperature and increasing humidity inside the cover. (National Research Centre for Banana, Tamil Nadu, India, 2013)
The North American monsoon has severely impacted the date crop four out of five seasons since 2013 in the United States and Mexico. Heavy rain and high humidity cause tearing of the date skin and make the flesh susceptible to disease, especially black mold. (Haas and Bliss, Hilgardia, 1935). Therefore, date growers have resorted to using date-bunch covers that combine wet-strength kraft paper, or plastic film, on top for rain protection, with porous, insect-proof, mesh fabric below to encapsulate the bunch. U.S. Pat. Appl. No. 20010051240 teaches a novel way of layering polyester mesh at the top of the cover to exclude rain. The mesh fabric comprising the lower portion of all these covers, although tight enough to exclude insects, allows windborne dust and mold spores to penetrate the cover and accumulate on the dates.
Compounding this problem is the trend to use mesh fabrics made of monofilament yarn, many of which have holes as large as possible that still keep out insects. Unfortunately, the larger the holes, the more exposed the dates are to dust, mold spores, desiccating winds, and sunburning, and the more likely the occurrence of skin separating from the flesh, a defect known as “puffy skin”.
In the early 1990s, a grant from the Organic Farming Research Foundation funded research by Ecosphere R&D in the Coachella Valley, Calif., which culminated with the invention of the combination kraft paper rain hood and polyester multifilament woven mesh cover that USDA researchers theorized as the ideal date-bunch cover seventy years ago, but the required fabric was lacking until the mid-1980s. (Date Growers' Inst. Rep. 26: 7-15, 1949, and Rep. 27: 7-12, 1950) However, due to its relatively high cost compared with various mesh fabrics now, especially those being imported, date growers are reluctant to invest in polyester multifilament woven mesh, despite its unsurpassed effectiveness, durability, and easy handling. They urgently need a price-competitive fabric for protecting the bunches without sacrificing fruit quality.
The preferred embodiment of the present invention comprises two panels of polyethylene spunbond nonwoven fabric which are joined horizontally in a tubular configuration sized to encapsulate a date bunch, the upper panel is rainproof and the lower panel is porous. The object is to protect the dates from rain, exclude insects, birds, dust and mold spores, partially shade the bunch, and enhance the microclimate about the dates.
An alternate embodiment comprises a tubular configuration sized to encapsulate a date bunch, which is made of porous polyethylene spunbond nonwoven fabric, in combination with a sheet of rainproof material that is wrapped around the upper portion of the bunch, either on the inside or outside of the tube-shaped cover, to form a rain hood. The object of the alternate embodiment is the same as that of the preferred embodiment.
The present invention offers four major advantages over the prior art:
(a) Polyethylene spunbond nonwoven fabric is lighter, less abrasive, and compresses more easily;
(b) The temperature inside the cover is lower and humidity higher, which improves fruit quality and promotes pliable, smooth, skin instead of dry and brittle as commonly occurs with mesh fabrics made of monofilament yam;
(c) Black mold is insignificant under close tree spacing and “wet summer” conditions despite increased humidity inside the cover (See: TABLES 1 and 2 below); and,
(d) Ripe dates can be held on-tree longer than was ever possible before without accumulating dust or losing quality, which obviates the labor-intensive practice of multiple pickings.
While the present invention lends itself to embodiment in various forms, there is shown in the drawings, and will hereinafter be described, the preferred embodiment and an alternate, with the understanding that the present disclosure is to be considered as an exemplification of the present invention, and is not intended to limit the invention to the specific embodiments illustrated.
Referring now to the drawings, the preferred embodiment as shown in
Turning now to
As shown in
As shown in
In addition to protecting the dates, the cover catches the ones that naturally drop or high winds knock off the fruitstrands. The dates are harvested by opening the strap and removing the ones that dropped, hand-picking the ripe ones on the fruitstrands, and then closing the bottom. This operation can be done multiple times, or only once after all the dates have ripened.
After completing the harvest, the bottom is left open, and the cover detached from the fruitstalk and removed from the bunch. The cover is then bundled and stored until the next season. The two styles of fabric comprising the cover are serviceable one to four seasons depending on their weight.
An alternate embodiment, as shown in
The rain hood shown in
After harvesting the dates, the bottom of the cover is left open, and the cover and rain hood are detached from the fruitstalk and removed from the bunch. The cover is then bundled and stored until the next season unless worn out.
The rain hood and the bunch are either burned, or buried, or disked into the soil and soaked with irrigation water to hasten decomposition, or alternatively shredded and left on the soil for mulch. The paper is FDA compliant, biodegradable and compostable.
It will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications of an obvious nature may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.
