Wax coated sand as mulch

[ChinaVoodoo]

https://phys.org/news/2022-03-wax-coated-sand-soil-longer-crop.html

... it decreased the loss of soil moisture up to 50–80%. Field trials revealed that tomato, barley and wheat plants mulched with the new material produced substantially more fruit and grain than those grown in uncovered soil. In addition, the microbial community around the plants' roots and in the soil wasn't negatively impacted by the waxy mulch, which could have acted as a food source for some of the microbes.

This raises several questions. Would you need to do the hexane solution in order to create the sand or could you just immerse the sand in molten wax, then drain it?

Also, could you pour a small ring of wax/sand slurry around seedlings without harming them?

Would cutworms eat the wax? Would you mix diatomaceous earth into the wax?

 

[deluxestogie]

"As the solvent evaporated, a 20-nm-thick coating of wax was left behind on the grains. When the team applied the wax-coated sand in a thin layer on an open field in Saudi Arabia..."

1) The evaporative deposition of the paraffin onto the sand grains apparently yields individual grains, rather than a sand-impregnated slab of paraffin. This is because the dissolved paraffin is adhered to the sand grains at room temp, rather than above the melting point of the paraffin. 2) The folks in the agricultural regions of Saudi Arabia are not able to photograph a river from their back porch. 3) Although the study's authors note that the paraffin is biodegradable, they also point out that no microbes in the test plot paid any attention to the paraffin. So after completing the study, writing and editing the article, submitting it for publication, awaiting peer review comments, and its final appearance in a publication from the American Chemical Society, all that "biodegradable" paraffin is probably still lying there on the ground in Saudi Arabia.

Bob

EDIT: Do let us know what the cutworms decide.