US 7,207,140 B1 · Vegetative planting material and method for producing it, useful in grass sod production

Abstract

The invention provides a new form of vegetative propagating material, referred to as “the grass plantlet”, as well as a method for producing it. The new vegetative planting material and the method by which it is obtained make it possible to replicate and increase both warm and cool season grasses more rapidly than by the conventional methods of seeding, sprigging, or plugging. Three to five new, clean, and pure generations of a newly developed seeded or vegetative cultivar can be obtained each year. Outcrossing, the need for burning and possibly for herbicide use are eliminated by the present invention. The present methodology embodies a sterile production system resulting in grass plantlets that are free of nematodes, pathogenic fungi, and damaging insects. The method of the invention has the capacity to rapidly reproduce and to maintain the genetic purity of promising new cultivars that would otherwise be discarded because they are sterile hybrids, low seed producers, sterile direct DNA transfers, or cross pollinated non-apomicts.

Claims21

Dependent claims

A method of producing grass plantlets as a vegetative propagating material useful in the replication and cultivation of both seeded and vegetative grass cultivars, comprising:

a. harvesting, from a locus having a natural or artificial growing surface thereon, a juvenile sod less than or equal to three months old together with growing medium in which the sod was growing;
b. physically separating as a first separation step, said juvenile sod into a vegetative fraction and a growing medium fraction without damage to meristematic tissue of said vegetative fraction;
c. separating further, as a second separation step, said vegetative fraction obtained in step b) to isolate grass plantlets, each plantlet comprised of root, stem, and leaf tissue and without damage to meristematic tissue;
and
d. recycling said growing medium separated in step b) by returning said growing medium to the locus having said growing surface thereon, said growing medium to be reused in subsequent rounds of producing more grass plantlets and sods grown therefrom, wherein steps a)–d) are conducted directly at the locus having said growing surface thereon.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Vegetative planting material and method for producing it, useful in grass sod production

Life of this patent

Vegetative planting material and method for producing it, useful in grass sod production

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims21