One of the most beautiful and famous gardens in Germany uses steam as a comprehensive means to control weeds. The so-called dahlia hill was treated sucessfully with steam after other means of weed control had become ineffective and too costly.
In June 2010 Isle Mainau asked the company mobildampf.de to gradually steam flowerbeds of altogether 2000 m² via sheet steaming.
Within just 3 days and after about 50 operating hours the area was sterilized using 2 steam boilers. Among was one steam boiler type S2000 produced by MSD AG / Durbach with an output of 2000kg steam/h. The beds were steamed down to 30 cm depth reaching a temperature of 85°C. Within the upcoming years weed pressure on the dahlia hill has been effectively resolved.
Success in horticulture requires perfect control of quality, operating cost, crop and output.
In cooperation with Bärtschi‐FOBRO AG (Switzerland), MSD Corp. from Durbach (Germany) has mastered the task to develop and build a machine which allows a rational 24 hour operation without staff to steam large beets efficiently.
In particular wholesalers increase pressure on vegetable growers to sanitize soil without chemicals. The arugula incident in 2009 where poisonous ragwort was found in salat packs has further increased pressure.
Steaming Mobile – Full Automat in operation on field
Steaming is one of the few suitable methods that are able to meet all requirements. Furthermore a high level of automation could be reached with MSD-Fobro Steaming Robot A600‐12. The first two fully automatic steaming robots could be handed over after several months of challenging development work.
On the occasion of the IPM 2010 in Essen the steaming robot was introduced to the public for the very first time. The machine was awarded with the Indega innovation award for technical advancement. The price was awarded since the innovation provides a solution for vegetable growers to efficiently control weed pressure and diseases in beets.
The most populated American federal state is one the biggest producing areas of berry cultures and flowers. Methyl bromide was mostly used to sanitize soil before its international ban. After proscription of this chemical harmful to climate and health, new alternatives to free soil from diseases and weeds are desperately searched for.
Since 2007 the University of California in Salinas does intensive research on different options to apply steaming technology, which has been almost forgotten in the US, although it was leading advancements at the end of the 19th century. Today steaming technology returns back to the focus of interest in America. Results of the studies are promising. Steaming methods were explicitly compared with the usage of methyl bromide and solarization. Furthermore a combined method of hot steam and solarization has been tested. First soil was covered with insulating sheets and heated merely through sun radiation before hot steam was induced to treat deeper soil layers.
The treatment of soil with mere steam showed the best results. In particular regarding the shotting of weeds, which was even better than the excellent results of methyl bromide. The same results were gained regarding the average weight of fruits. In comparison to the control area, fruit weight increased by more than 25%.
Due to the positive results, the University of California induced further steps to do research on steaming applications for big growers. Therefore end of 2009 a “Sterilter” full automatic steaming machine which was coproduced by Ferrari Constructione and MSD Corp., Germany-Durbach, was introduced. New experiments will be made with this machine, in order to test and advance steaming applications.
IPM is the leading fair in the area of plants, technology and floristry. In this year’s fair, new steaming technologies will be introduced.
More than 60.000 visitors will come and get the latest updates on the advantages of steaming. New innovations are expected.
MSD GmbH from Durbach, in Germany, will introduce a newly developed steaming system “A-600-12”. This machine has been co-developed with Bärtschi-Fobro, CH-Hüswil, and is specialized on the economic steaming of groomed beet cultures such as Baby-Leaf-Salads. The current version of the system has an output of 600kg per hour. 12m2 can be steamed in one work-step.
Since last year many quantity buyers require complete ragwort-free products due to big problems with ragwort in arugula cultures. Hence it is expected that the machine will meet demand in the market. In just 5 minutes 95° hot steam kills all weeds and their seeds. The result is always a perfectly sanitized soil which is free from pathogens. For more than half a century, the positive effects of steaming have been scientifically proven.
