The Dutch company Future Growing, formerly Proeftuin Ron Peters has used Ultramins in a large-scale spore control test. That was with a deep water culture (DWC) system in hydroponic water. Ultramins has previously done ToBRF virus trials at this living lab with great success.
"We had an issue. A certain test crop for a customer kept failing, and we were sure the water was the problem," says Ron Peters. "We were right. Eurofins Agro took water samples, and all the water in the tank was heavily infested with Pytofthora and Pythium. That's a real situation that real DWC growers would face. It was a 5 m x 20 m x roughly 40 cm DWC tank.
Ultramins had such good results against ToBRFV. I, thus, approached them regarding these issues. There's no other way to treat water in tanks. You place a transmitter, and otherwise, you do nothing. The transmitters' cavitation pressure waves do their job, eliminating all traces of the fungi. Afterwards, we used the same transmitters in much larger tanks with the same success. There, too, all spores were killed," explains Ron.
The Eurofins Agro water samples showed this DNA image:
Exactly 14 days after this sample, a new one was taken and published to show the fungi's vitality. No trace of Pytofthera or Pythium was found. "That was consistent with how the crop looked, it was doing extremely well, whereas, before, it was rapidly dying."
Robert de Hoo, Ultramins owner: "We fitted the tank with a single USAF cavitating ultrasonic transmitter, the USAF DT 100 Watt. We only took a water sample after two weeks because there was a biofilm that contains many spores. Those had to be eliminated first. These results within such a short time are, of course, fantastic."
Roberts adds that the transmitters can work much faster. "You can use our USAF cavitating ultrasonic transmitters to treat basins and silos, too. With silos, the disinfection speed is crucial since some are emptied several times a day. We have suitable solutions for all farms, and after installation, one has almost no worries about the water quality. Also, it's important to note that, besides Pythium and Pytophthora, our emitters also kill algae, biofilm, and other pathogens, even the persistent Fusarium."
USAF™ is a Luijkx Ultrasound B.V. trademark.
For more information:
Robert de Hoo
Ultramins
87a De Corantijn
1689 AN, Zwaag, NL
Tel.: +31 (0) 850 231 097
Tel.: +31 (0) 620 536 536
Email: [email protected]
www.ultramins.com