Seed treatment facilities, methods, and apparatus

• US 9,918,425 B2
• Filed: 12/08/2011
• Issued: 03/20/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Bayer Cropscience LP (Bayer AG)
• Original Assignee: Bayer Cropscience LP (Bayer AG)
• Inventors: Reineccius, Greg A., Van der Westhuizen, Jaco Ernest, Geiss, Alan W., May, Bradley W., Ramanarayanan, Tharacad S., Andrieux, Marc Jean-Marie
• Primary Examiner(s): Capozzi, Charles
• Application Number:
  US13/993,039
• Publication Number:
  US 20140083358A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,294 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: A01C 1/06 Coating or dressing seed
• CPC Class Codes: A01C 21/00 Methods of fertilising , sowing or planting
• CPC Class Codes: A23B 9/14 Coating with a protective layer; Compositions or apparatus therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10237 the reader and the record carrier being capable of selectively switching between reader and record carrier appearance, e.g. in near field communication [NFC] devices where the NFC device may function as an RFID reader or as an RFID tag
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/02 Agriculture; Fishing; Forestry; Mining

Abstract

A seed treatment system having a central computerized data store, a user interface, and network connections from the data store to a plurality of retail facilities and a plurality of agricultural produce suppliers. Each retail facility having a seed treatment system configured to uniformly treat batches of seeds with any of a variety of precisely measured chemical formulations. The seed treatment apparatus having a treatment applicator coupled to a plurality of dispensing stations. Each dispensing stations having a pump in fluid communication with a container disposed on a scale. The pump and scale of each dispensing station coupled to a system controller. The system controller is coupled to the data store, configured to provide on-demand agricultural seed treatments to the applicator and chemical usage data from each station to the data store. The data store configured to provide centralized remote monitoring inventory control, supply chain monitoring, and container recycling compliance.

Claims

1. A seed treatment facility for delivery of treated seeds to retail customers for planting, the facility comprising:

(a) a storage area, an operations area, and a customer access area;

(b) a storage area comprising a stock of manually handleable kegs, each keg comprising a seed treatment formulation and each having a size from about 5 to about 60 gallons;

(c) a plurality of keg stations in the operations area at the facility, each keg station having a keg receiving region for placement and replacement of a selected keg of the stock of the manually handleable kegs and a fluid coupling for connecting to the selected keg, and a pump fluidly connected to the coupling, and a fluid line in fluid communication with the pump extending from each keg station;

wherein the keg stations comprise

a rack portion with the pump affixed thereto,

a base portion attached to the rack portion and extending horizontally, and

a scale positioned on the base portion and partially defining the keg receiving region,

(d) a plurality of kegs, wherein each keg ranges in size from about 5 to about 60 gallons and each keg comprises a seed treatment formulation;

(e) a continuous flow seed treater in the operations area at the facility, the continuous flow seed treater having a seed treatment formulation inlet, a seed inlet, a treatment portion, a mixing portion, and a treated seed discharge portion; and

(f) a programmable process controller having a user interface and being operably connected to the seed treater and each keg station, the programmable process controller configured to dispense seed treatment formulations from the kegs to the seed treater according to a recipe;

(g) each of the fluid lines of each keg station in direct fluid communication with the seed treatment formulation inlet of the seed treater without an intermediate mixing or slurry tank with respect to said direct fluid communication, whereby seed treatment formulation is dispensed directly from one or more kegs at the keg stations through said respective fluid lines to the seed treater with no manual mixing of the seed treatment formulations from the kegs and whereby exposure of operators to said seed treatment formulation is minimized, and

wherein each said fluid coupling is, with respect to the direction of gravity, attached to a top side of said selected keg of the stock of the filled manually handleable kegs.

2. The seed treatment facility of claim 1 further comprising bulk seed storage and conveyance apparatus for mechanically conveying a stream of bulk seed storage to the continuous flow treatment seed treater, the conveyance apparatus extending to the seed treater.

3. The seed treatment facility of claim 1 wherein each keg station has a variable flow pump controlled by the process controller and the scale defining the keg receiving region, the scale connected to the process controller wherein the weight loss of seed treatment formulations in kegs in place at the keg stations is monitored as the seed treatment formulations therein are being simultaneously dispensed in accord with the recipe.

4. The seed treatment facility of claim 3 wherein the process controller is programmed to utilize the monitoring of the weight loss of each keg while pumping to validate respective pump performance.

5. The seed treatment facility of claim 1 wherein the process controller is connected to a network for transmitting data relating to seed treatment operations and for receiving data including recipes for combining seed treatment formulations.

6. The seed treatment facility of claim 1 further comprising a scanner operably connected to the process controller for scanning kegs seating on any of the plurality of keg stations.

7. A seed treatment system comprising:

(a) a plurality of pump-stations having a receiving region for receiving a sealed liquid keg comprising a seed treatment formulation, each pump-station having a scale and a pump, the scale for receiving and monitoring a weight of the sealed liquid chemical keg received at the pump station;

(b) a plurality of kegs, each ranging in size from about 5 to about 60 gallons and each comprising a seed treatment formulation, wherein the scale is positioned underneath each keg;

(c) a mix-station comprising a mix tank disposed on a mix station scale, the mix station scale positioned underneath the mix-station, a mix station pump in fluid communication with the mix tank, a mix station pump controller, the mix station pump controller being configured to operate the mix station pump;

(d) a multi-port manifold comprising a plurality of inlets coupled to the plurality of kegs and said mix-tank and an outlet coupled to a seed treater;

(e) a programmable system controller electrically coupled to each pump controller and the scale of each of the plurality of pump-stations, the programmable system controller configured to receive weight readings from the scale of each of the plurality of pump-stations as the seed treatment formulations are dispensed and to control the simultaneous dispensing of seed treatment formulation from each pump in response to a seed treatment recipe;

(f) the seed-treater configured to apply a plurality of chemical treatments to a quantity of seed in a uniform manner, the seed treater in direct fluid communication with each pump station without an intermediate slurry or mixing tank with respect to said direct fluid communication between the seed treater and each pump station;

(g) wherein the programmable system controller is operably connected to a computer network and configured to receive and send data relating to seed treatment formulations;

(h) wherein an air-removal valve is affixed to each of the plurality of pump-stations and is in fluid communication with the pump and the keg; and

wherein each pump is configured to direct seed treatment formulation through the air-removal valve.

8. The seed treater of claim 7 wherein each pump station has a pump controller connected to the pump and to the programmable system controller.

9. The seed treatment system of claim 7, further comprising:

a bar code scanner operably coupled to the programmable system controller, wherein the bar code scanner is configured to read at least one bar code associated with the keg, and the programmable system controller is configured to receive and store a bar code number in an inventory database.

10. The seed treatment system of claim 7, further comprising:

a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) reader operably coupled to the programmable controller, wherein the RFID reader is configured to read a RFID tag attached to the keg and a set of data stored in the RFID tag is presented to the programmable system controller for report generation and inventory control.

11. The seed treatment system of claim 7, wherein an RFID reader is affixed to each of plurality of pump-stations and the system controller is configured such that the pump of the pump-station is only operated when the RFID reader can read an RFID tag associated with a keg positioned on the scale of the pump-station.

12. The seed treatment system of claim 7, wherein the programmable controller is further configured to report, via the computer network, select data collected during seed treatment.

13. The seed treatment system of claim 7, wherein the data collected during seed treatment by the programmable controller includes at least one of the following set:

a weight of chemical pumped from each keg;

a duration of time the pump of each pump-station was in operation;

an average speed of the pump of each pump-station during operation; and

a quantity of chemical applied to a batch of seed.

14. The seed treatment system of claim 7, wherein each keg further comprises (i) a sealed fill port and a (ii) coupler, wherein fluid can only be withdrawn from the transportable keg through the coupler, and the mix tank further comprises a water supply line.