12/02/05 Propane, fruit and wines, and research

12/02/05 Propane, fruit and wines, and research

The Propane Education Research Council has been one of several research based organizations created to develop new technologies and methods to benefit agriculture in general, and through specific applications, the tree fruit and wine grape industries. LEITMAN: We've invested a lot of money in different weed control technologies. Currently, there are flame cultivators that are available that will essentially use propane flame or heat to control weeds. Those have been popular among organic growers. And Mark Leitman of P.E.R.C. reminds listeners of new steam based weed controls like the Aturas Stinger and others currently under R and D. But Leitman says a new agreement should provide a large boost towards achieving research goals. LEITMAN: We did sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S.D.A.'s Agriculture Research Service very recently. And that is a very general agreement that says we are going to work with them to develop projects of mutual interests. So it's part of our overall strategy to partner with the government, to partner with industry. To leverage our resources through our check-off program to find solid business solutions that solve big problems for the American farmer. The M.O.U. focuses on several areas of joint research such as organic farming, pathogen reduction, non-chemical alternatives to methyl bromide, on-farm distributed energy generation, and remediation of ag wastes.
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