How to choose from the existing types of landscape fabric

The main technical indicators of landscape cloth include permeability, tensile strength, width, color, and lifespan, which are described as follows:

1. Permeability rate: refers to the amount of water that passes through a unit area in seconds, mainly reflecting the ability of a material to pass through surface water. Therefore, there are different requirements for the permeability rate of a material in different usage environments. Generally, materials used outdoors require a permeability rate of 35.0L/s ², while materials used in greenhouses should have a permeability rate of 31.7L/s ².

2. Tensile strength: This indicator is mainly used to ensure the strength requirements that the material should have under general production conditions when subjected to external forces (pulling, pulling, etc.). Based on research and practical experience, the tensile strength test value conducted according to the requirements of international standard ISO 5081 should be greater than 800N.

3 Width: The width of the material is related to the laying method and quantity. In order to reduce the labor and material losses caused by cutting, standard width ground cloth should be used for flat combination as much as possible. Currently, the common widths in the world (mainly in the United States and Europe) are 3.30m, 3.50m, 4.20m, and 5.25.

4 colors: Usually, there are three types of landscape cloth: black, white, and green. Black can be used indoors or outdoors, while white and green are mainly used in greenhouses to increase the light level inside the greenhouse and promote plant photosynthesis. At the same time, due to the reflection effect of white cloth on light, it can also reduce the heat accumulation on the greenhouse floor and lower the ground temperature. Therefore, white cloth is often used in greenhouse cultivation that requires high light.

5 Lifespan: As the main function of landscape cloth is ground protection and weed suppression, its service life should have certain requirements. Otherwise, material damage will directly affect drainage, weed suppression and other functions. From the perspective of production investment and efficiency, the cost-effectiveness ratio (lifespan/price) of this material should be greater than 2.

Characteristics of non-woven landscape fabric:

Most of the raw materials for non-woven anti grass cloth are geotextiles or hydroentangled non-woven fabrics, which have better water permeability compared to plastic woven anti grass cloth, with faster water permeability. Secondly, non-woven fabrics have better warmth retention than plastic woven non-woven fabrics. For some insulation fabrics, non-woven anti grass cloth is a better choice. Of course, the disadvantages of non-woven anti grass cloth are also obvious:

Firstly, the raw material of geotextile is polyester fiber or polyester fiber, which has disadvantages such as low moisture content, poor breathability, poor dyeing, easy pilling and fuzzing, and easy contamination. Although covering exposed loess can have a grass prevention effect on the surface, it actually has a great impact on the soil. Every part of the surface skin, like other organisms, breathes, which further hinders the survival of green plants.

Secondly, it is flammable when exposed to fire. Our reporter conducted a small experiment and found that the dust cloth ignites immediately when exposed to fire, with a low safety factor. If covered extensively, there are high safety hazards, and we hope that relevant departments will take this seriously.

Thirdly, recycling is difficult. After covering a large area, it is difficult to dispose of the recycled waste. It is understood that naturally degradable materials must be carbon based biomass materials, and other chemical synthetic materials are difficult to be degraded by nature. Geotextiles can only be filled or burned.

Fourthly, observe that most of the landscape fabric made from geotextiles become extremely fragile in terms of tensile strength and elongation at break after about a year of use. Their furry nature is also a natural shelter for pests to overwinter in winter. After covering these landscape fabric, agricultural pests will increase year by year, which may not be very obvious in the early stages, but will gradually become apparent in the later stages. After using this landscape cloth for four years, compared with regular PP polypropylene landscape cloth, the pest count per acre is 15-20% higher than that of regular PP polypropylene landscape cloth. The need for insecticides to kill a large number of pests is not worth the cost, causing significant losses to many agricultural growers.