The huge advances in intensive agriculture, which has now become an industry, are attributed, among other things, to the development and adoption of plastics in various product forms for different applications. The use of plastics in agriculture, also referred to as plasticulture, is growing globally across agricultural sectors and includes irrigation lines, pots, plastic films, and many other things. The main use of plastic films over wide agricultural sectors includes the covering of greenhouses, walk-in tunnels, and low tunnels over row crops. This chapter discusses only those aspects of plastics chemistry, technology, and application that are directly relevant to the development, improvement, and application of soil fumigation and solarization. This chapter discusses development and technology of plastics production from the standpoint of the end user interested in its practical agricultural use for soil disinfestation. It aims to demonstrate the evolution of plastics chemistry and technology as it emerged from the needs and developments of soil disinfestation. The chapter does not discuss pure plastics chemistry and production, which have been thoroughly reviewed elsewhere. It is also not the purpose of this chapter to discuss plastic films that are related to other uses, including soil mulching for crop production per se; information on these can be found in Briston.

Chapter 18