July 27,2018,Nairobi.In recent years the treatment of flowers with UV as a post harvest treatment has become more common as a way to avoid losses in transport or during storage. Flowerfarms in East Africa and Latin America are incorporating the UV technology into their normal packing & shipping routines.
Now, a number of progressive vegetable growers also confirm that a judicious treatment with the correct dosage of UV can yield impressive results as well.
Wijnen Square Crops in Netherlands a widely respected producer of English cucumbers. Their Quality Manager, Roy Joosten: “Because of our excellent climate control systems we have very very low losses due to diseases. We can optimize the climate in our greenhouses at all times, so that diseases do not get much of a chance. However, when a cucumber is being clipped from the plant, a few drops of plantjuice can fall onto the product. This can, under certain conditions, serve as a feeding ground for what we call Honey Dew Mould, during storage at the customer location”
Arne Aiking of CleanLight explains: “So, they went on a search for a method to provide longer protection for their products. They elected to use a non-chemical method, because they ship to a number of large customers each with their own MRL restrictions. In addition, they did not wish to slow down their advanced packing/shipping machinery which is supplied by Aweta”.
Ultimately Wijnen Square Crops settled on UV by CleanLight. Joosten: “These modules were relatively quick and easy to install in our machinery. We could let our sortingline run at full speed. And as the pictures show, even under conditions of artificially high disease pressure, and conditions of extremely long storage under warm conditions, the results were impressive. It means our customers have fewer worries about losses. And it means they have absolutely no worries about MRL infractions”.
Aiking: “We are working with a number of vegetable growers in Europe and the UK with similar systems. Growers have managed to achieve good results with the following examples:
- bellpeppers against Erwinia,
- strawberries against Botrytis, and
- tomatoes against Honeydew Mould.
Arne Aiking | CEO
T: +31 317 – 497 620 | M: +31 6 21 57 46 57
E: aiking@cleanlight.nl
W: www.cleanlight.nl
news@hortinews.co.ke
