This buyers' guide appears in the September 2017 issue of Potato Grower.
Well, your little potatoes are all grown up now and ready to leave the field. Over the coming months, we hope they will fulfill their collective destiny, ultimately making their way to consumers’ plates. To help ensure your potatoes are comfortable and safe until the day they become delectable delicacies, we present to you this storage equipment buyers’ guide, with many of the industry’s leading innovations for making sure your crop leaves storage looking as good as it did coming in.
1,4Group, Inc.
(800) 881-0823
www.14group.com
1,4SIGHT
1,4SIGHT is a great choice for growers to maintain superior post-harvest potato quality in storage, and works well for both the processing and the fresh markets. No other product provides the broad-spectrum protection of sprout dormancy enhancement, reduced respiration and increased water retention. These protections minimize pressure bruising, which results in higher yields and allows for greater flexibility when shipping potatoes to customers and end users.
The 1,4-DMN family of products are naturally occurring in potatoes and are classified as a biopesticide by the EPA, which allows the grower a preferred safety choice for his customers. The 1,4-DMN family are all suitable for use on all potatoes, including seed, and have no effect on color, sugar levels, taste or cooking quality.
1,4GROUP backs its customers with extensive support before, during and after the sale, including applicator training to ensure complete success.
Aceto Agricultural Chemicals
(516-478-9537)
www.aceto.com
tkippley@aceto.com
FreshPack 50EC
Aceto Agricultural Chemicals Corporation’s FreshPack 50EC can now be thermally applied to potatoes in-storage to burn buds, stop sprouting, and extend potato dormancy. The product label allows for in-storage application, providing growers, packers and processors a new in-storage tool for potato sprout control.
FreshPack 50EC is a unique clove oil product that utilizes Aceto’s advanced formulation technology to increase bud-burning power and sprout control efficacy while maximizing safety and ease of application. Fresh Pack 50EC can be used with Sprout Nip and/or Amplify as part of a complete season-long sprout control program or applied before packing stored potatoes to burn any buds or peepers.
Agri-Stor Companies
Twin Falls, Idaho: (208) 733-7000
Blackfoot, Idaho: (208) 785-7000
Warden, Wash.: (509) 349-7000
SmartBlock
For processors and fresh markets alike, sprout control is of vital importance. SmartBlock is a post-harvest sprout inhibitor that effectively achieves extended sprout control in stored potatoes. It is a naturally occurring molecule commonly found in foods such as yogurt and mushrooms. It has been approved by the FDA as a direct food additive and has no effect on finish, color, sugar levels, taste, texture or cooking quality.
SmartBlock can be fogged directly into potato storage units using commercial thermal fogging equipment. Its patented technology works effectively alone or combined with other sprout inhibitor products to effectively burn off peeping or fully sprouted tubers and restore dormancy. Depending on storage temperature, one SmartBlock application can have ongoing sprout control for up to three months.
BTU Ventilation
(888) 884-8070
www.btuventilation.com
BTU Ventilation Systems
BTU Ventilation offers the engineering expertise to design your storage facilities, along with incorporating BTU ventilation systems to meet the specific needs for different operations. BTU offers growers the state-of-the-art systems with features that will maximize a crop’s quality from post-harvest storage to market delivery.
BTU systems can be implemented as upgrades to existing storages or as part of a new storage construction. In either case, BTU provides engineering management to assure that a grower’s investment provides the best return season after season.
Disinfecting Services
(208) 356-5332
www.disinfectingservices.net
tmortensen@disinfectingservices.net
Cleaning and Disinfecting
Disinfecting Services is a company specializing in post-harvest applications on stored potatoes and cleaning and disinfecting potato storages to keep them up to GAP standards. Disinfecting Services offers plenum pipe straightening, plenum pipe cleaning and disinfecting, cell deck flushes, AC coil washing, and piler applicator cleaning.
Disinfecting Services also has its own line of post-harvest chemical products, including:
- Harvest 6.0, one of the strongest disinfectants labeled for potatoes;
- Bio-Ultra, a high-foaming detergent designed to penetrate into heavily contaminated surfaces and break down contaminants from storage walls;
- Growers’ Shield, a soil treatment that, combined with Harvest 6.0, moves deeper into the surface to disinfect floors.
Dykman
(888) 336-3988
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sales@dykman.com
Yaskawa U1000
Dykman is now stocking Yaskawa’s newest addition to the pump drive family, the U1000, which incorporates matrix technology to directly convert input AC voltage to output AC voltage. The drive is ideally suited for food storage applications, providing extremely low harmonic distortion, energy savings and serviceability in a space-saving design. The U1000 meets IEEE-519 requirements without the use of filters.
Dykman’s sales professionals in Boise, Denver, Gillette, Phoenix, Pocatello, Portland, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Spokane, Tri-Cities, and Tulsa deliver local service with access to inventory from 25 warehouses across the U.S. Through strategic partnerships with manufacturers and aggressive re-investment of profits, Dykman is able to provide customers with access to one of the most complete stocks of motors, drives, controls and reducers in North America.
The Gellert Company
888-GELLERT
www.gellert.com
Agri-Star Control Panel
Gellert has improved its already feature-rich, easy-to-use Agri-Star control panel by adding icons to the home screen. These icons allow the user to see which equipment is on and whether it is functioning properly. The new app is designed so that the same recognizable icons will turn the equipment on and off with one touch. Logging in or changing screens is no longer necessary to be able to make changes.
Leaving lights on inside a storage facility can be a costly mistake. In Gellert’s newest software release, alerts can be set up to notify the user if lights are left on.
The Agri-Star control panel is available through local Gellert dealers.
Gorman Controls Ltd.
(902) 658-2550
www.gormancontrols.com
mailbox@gormancontrols.com
MicroVent Vision
Next-generation innovations from Gorman Controls help buildings young and old protect crops, reduce energy costs and maximize return on investment. From the intelligent MicroVent Vision controller, ventilation and refrigeration systems to custom control systems, Gorman Controls offers a comprehensive portfolio of time-, cost- and energy-saving solutions for new storage facilities or modernization of older facilities. With over 1,000 systems installed across North America, Gorman’s team of experts has the experience to solve growers’ toughest challenges.
The MicroVent Vision system has several features that provide a fully customized operation. Demand ventilation, based on temperature and/or carbon dioxide, allows a storage manager to optimize ventilation time. Pile sensor averaging allows users to monitor temperature throughout the system. Storage managers can use this tool to control ventilation time based on any combination of these sensors. Fan speed control provides even more flexibility. The fan speed can be automatically controlled depending on the objective of a given ventilation time. Internet connectivity and the MicroVent Alert app provide a view of the storage from anywhere.
IHT, Inc.
(800) 656-2281
www.humigation.com
Humigator
IHT announces a new complete line of Humigator products for potato storage. The newly redesigned Humigators clean and humidify storage air 60 percent and are easier to install faster than previous models. The new models are optimized for storages from 30,000 hundredweight to larger than 100,000 hundredweight.
Humigation both disinfects and humidifies storage air. It stops the spread of silver scurf and other airborne disease and humidifies up to 100 percent relative humidity while minimizing water usage and standing water. With a 60 percent increase in airflow and air-scrubbing efficiency, the new Humigators clean and humidify storage air more completely and faster than ever. Humigation has significantly reduced or eliminated yield loss from silver scurf and has maintained relative humidity at higher than 95 percent for many growers. With a smaller footprint, improved reliability and direct power connection, they are also easier to install and operate.
Humigators are available in three sizes to meet the needs of any storage facility’s size and configuration. Purchase financing is also available.
Jet Harvest Solutions
(877) 866-5773
www.jetharvest.com
Jet-Ag
Whatever structure growers use to store their harvested potatoes and onions, they can look to IVI’s Jet-Ag service to ensure optimal conditions inside. Jet-Ag is a broad-spectrum, peroxyacetic acid, certified organic, agricultural sanitizer registered as a fungicide, bactericide and algaecide for agricultural and horticultural use and post-harvest/storage fogging.
It is used for the control of fungi and plant pathogens. Post-harvest fogging application controls micro-organisms that cause decay or spoilage. Jet-Ag is a versatile, proven product that is effective at the initial moment of storage or any time thereafter.
NCFI Polyurethanes
(800) 346-8229
www.ncfi.com
agrithane@ncfi.com
AgriThane SFP Insulation
AgriThane agricultural SFP insulation for potato storage buildings helps protect growers’ hard-earned assets. AgriThane insulation saves money by reducing crop loss and energy costs. It gives managers complete environmental control of the shed or building by providing consistent temperature and humidity levels, preventing condensation, reducing heat loss through walls and ceilings, and improving indoor air quality.
When AgriThane is spray-applied, it fills every crack and crevice, expands to the formulated thickness, and cures in place to form a monolithic insulation cover as a sustainable part of the building envelope. It acts as a water and air barrier to protect the indoor environment from outdoor elements. AgriThane, by the same company that pioneered SPF insulation in the 1960s, NCFI, is ideal for potato storage. Call now for more information.
Suberizer, Inc.
(888) 454-9895
www.suberizer.com
Curve Interior Wall, AirEverywhere Air Distribution
The ultra-smooth Suberizer Curve storage bay interior wall significantly enhances insulation performance. Suberizer’s high-performing AirEverywhere under-floor concrete uniform air distribution, coupled with Suberizer’s external fanhouse, produces phenomenal storage management benefits. The advantages of Suberizer’s external fanhouse include:
- Direct access from fanhouse to top of pile for premium storage management;
- Direct field department access to top of pile from Fanhouse for sample collection;
- Effective correlation of system operation and performance;
- Premium automatic DX bypass and cell automatic bypass from control panel, remote PC or cellphone;
- Efficient blow-through humidification cell for maximum adiabatic cooling;
- Enhancement of uniform air distribution to the pile, which enables uniform sprout inhibitor distribution; and
- Under-floor duct cleaning design.
Techmark, Inc.
(517) 322-0250
www.techmark-inc.com
pmorris@techmark-inc.com
Stor-Trac
PIC: STOR_TRAC_JULY2017
Stor-Trac, the remote software interface for Techmark storage control systems, connects growers to their storage systems from anywhere in the world. From a mobile or desktop device, storage managers can review and make changes to their storage ventilation settings. The responsive design means the user interface will adjust in size and layout to make the best user experience for the device, whether it be a phone, tablet or desktop.
Storage system alarms are integrated in the Stor-Trac program, creating an efficient means of receiving, reviewing and reacting to changes in the storage environment. Stor-Trac allows the farm team to be connected to storages no matter where they are.