5. Biodegradable Spray Mulching and Nursery Pots: New Frontiers for Research

Agricultural activities need plastics for many applications such as films for soil mulching and pots for plants transplanting. The use of plastic products, made of fossil raw materials, such as polystyrene, polyethylene, and polypropylene results in huge quantities of plastic wastes to be disposed of. In the past two decades, the growing environmental awareness strongly encouraged researchers and industries toward the use of biodegradable polymers for solving the plastic waste problem. Researchers have made strong efforts to identify new biopolymers coming from renewable sources as valid ecosustainable alternatives to petroleum based plastic commodities. The main research results and current applications concerning the biodegradable plastics in agriculture, such as thermo-extruded Mater-Bi and sprayable water-born polysaccharides based coatings, are described in this chapter. A lineup of biopolymers coming from raw and renewable sources, such as polysaccharides, are reported; the intrinsic chemico-physical properties of polysaccharides, responsible for the realization of dry water stable hydrogels, suitable for the formation of both soil mulching coatings and transplanting biopots, are investigated. A description of the natural additives, fillers and cellulosic fibers included in the polymeric matrices, able to enhance the mechanical performance of coatings and pots is provided, together with the outputs in the specific applications.