DEVELOPMENT OF WATER-RETAINING CARTRIDGES WITH POLYMER-MINERAL MATERIAL

To ensure the normal functioning of plants, light, heat, water, nutrients and air are necessary. Increasing the yield and quality of cultivated crops can be achieved with the help of systems for monitoring and controlling the processes of growing plants and environment (soil and atmosphere), applied fertilizers and missing irrigation water. The addition of polymer-mineral material (PMM) to the soil, a new innovative material, created at Moscow State University (Research Institute of Mechanics), by mixing them as well as the installation of water-retaining cartridges of various shapes with a predetermined amount of PMM in it, increase its moisture capacity, allow saving an additional volume of water for plant nutrition accumulated from precipitation or artificial irrigation. Standard designs of cartridges of various shapes, pre-designed and manufactured using additive technologies, installed in containers with soil or in the open ground, allow for the accumulation of additional moisture for plants, reduce the metered consumption of irrigation water by 2 times and when used in the open ground in rain-filled conditions of the middle zone of Russia, practically eliminate it, by increasing the moisture capacity of the soil by 20–30 % (PMM dissolved in water increases its viscosity tenfold).