Novel Oxidant Product Formulation for Greenhouse Disinfection

The greenhouse requires an environment that has optimum nutrients, temperature, water and light so that it is conducive to rapid, healthy plant growth. Undesirable organisms also grow in such an environment, including disease-causing microbial plant pathogens and slimy microbial biofilm organisms that are difficult to remove and can cause worker hazards. Growers need a universally effective antimicrobial disinfectant that can be used against undesirable microbes in a greenhouse environment and prevent their spread.Greenhouse operations, on average, have fewer acres than outdoor growing but much higher sales per acre. Within these enclosed greenhouses re-occurring plant pathogen diseases and other unwanted microbes can be extremely problematic; infectious microbes and algae readily accumulate on moist surfaces. Disease within a greenhouse can be a key limitation to profitable plant production. Once introduced, pathogen populations within a greenhouse will continue to increase as long as there are susceptible plant tissues available for infection. Clean and disinfected surfaces are needed to ensure that pathogens are not carried over from one season to the next, or from one grower to another. Soil-borne pathogens can remain dormant for months or years and are capable of re-infecting susceptible plant material when it becomes available.In this effort, TDA Research, Inc. (TDA) is developing a new greenhouse disinfectant formulation that produces an established antimicrobial oxidant. The unique property of TDA's novel generation technology, compared with traditional products, is that the reactive oxidant is produced after the disinfectant solution is applied on the surface. The oxidant is generated continuously on the surface, providing the advantage of continued surface disinfection where other products rapidly decay and become ineffective. Our formulations utilize lower levels of active ingredients than traditional products and are compatible with the materials and metals used in greenhouses.