PUTTING MORE "O" IN H20
Company is testing irrigation
invention that could boost annual strawberry production in
Minnesota
BY E.M. MORRISON
 Water
enriched with oxygen will help irrigated crops grow faster
and more vigorous, a Bloomington company hopes to prove.
AquaInnovations, Inc. makes water oxygenation systems for
the sport-fishing industry. The company’s patented
technology, used by major boat manufacturers, zoos and the
Department of Natural Resources, keeps bait and live fish
healthy during transportation and storage.
Now,
AquaInnovations is extending its oxygenation technology to
agriculture. The University of Minnesota West Central
Research and Outreach Center in Morris is helping the
company find out if strawberry plants absorb more nutrients
when irrigation water is saturated with oxygen. That could
lead to more robust growth and bigger fruit yields. AURI
helped arrange the research, which is being combined with
wool mulch trials. (See “Mulch makeover,” page 4.)
Tiny
bubbles
AquaInnovations was formed in 2002 by three water treatment
industry veterans to commercialize a new method of adding
oxygen to water. Rick Anderson, company president, recalls
the day inventor and company co-founder Jim Senkiw first
demonstrated his idea.
“He
dumped the device in my coffee pot and started producing
oxygen. I had not seen anything like it before,” says
Anderson, a 16-year veteran of the industrial water
treatment field. “I knew it was significant. Right then and
there, I told Jim I was in.”
Unlike
conventional oxygenation systems, which pump ambient air
through a diffuser into the water, Senkiw’s method produces
100-percent oxygen from the water itself. Using a form of
electrolysis, the Pure Oxygen System separates water into
its components - hydrogen and oxygen. The lighter hydrogen
molecules rapidly escape into the atmosphere, while the
oxygen molecules remain suspended in the water.
The
micro and nano O2 bubbles are too small to break the surface
tension of the water, so they dissolve, saturating the water
with oxygen, Anderson explains. He says the battery-powered
OxygenatorTM is more efficient, reliable and versatile than
aeration.
Sporting new uses
The Pure Oxygen System, patented in February, has a wide
range of uses, Anderson says, among them: sport fishing,
aquariums, aquaculture, hydroponics, fermentation, livestock
and municipal wastewater treatment and irrigation. “We’ve
identified more than 50 possible applications.”
The company, which has raised $500,000 in investment capital
of a $2 million Series A preferred offering, focused first
on the sport fishing market. It makes three sizes of
portable oxygenators for boat live wells and bait buckets,
plus custom oxygenators.
Anderson got an inkling of the technology’s agricultural
potential soon after landing his first big sport fishing
order. He was visiting his relatives - who, incidentally,
“thought I was crazy to leave a good career selling
million-dollar water treatment systems to sell $50 and $100
units.”
He had the bait Oxygenator running in a container of water
on the kitchen table. Later, he dumped the oxygenated water
on his mother’s droopy African violet, “which was barely
alive.” A week later, the plant burst into flower for the
first time in five years, Anderson says.
Breathing plants
Like animals, plants also need oxygen. Plant roots use
oxygen to carry out respiration, a process that enables
roots to take up nutrients - or the plants will wilt and
die. But would giving plant roots more oxygen boost growth?
That’s the question AquaInnovations asked.
Anderson did some informal tests, growing tomato plants and
germinating grass seed with regular tap water versus
oxygenated water. “We saw dramatic results right away with
the oxygenated water,” Anderson said, “but these weren’t
controlled experiments.
So early this year, AquaInnovations approached the Minnesota
Soybean Growers Association for help in setting up more
rigorous testing. “The soybean growers were interested in
this idea and referred the company to us,” says Al Doering,
AURI technical specialist in Waseca.
Although AURI does not do agricultural production research,
staff have extensive contacts. Doering and Michael Sparby,
AURI project director, put Anderson in touch with
horticulturalist Steve Poppe at the Morris experiment
station.
Quick-start strawberries
Poppe was immediately intrigued with the oxygenator and
agreed to test it on a June-bearing strawberry plot and
fall-planted annual strawberries. Trials began this spring
and will continue through 2005.
The ag oxygenator fits inside an irrigation pipe, saturating
well water with oxygen as it flows into a drip line. The
device can be scaled up to oxygenate large irrigation
systems, up to 700 gallons a minute, and operates on
standard current.
Poppe is especially interested in the oxygenator’s potential
for annual strawberries, which are transplanted in August
and bear fruit the following spring. Annual strawberry
production requires less labor and pesticides than
June-bearer production, and the plants are less prone to
disease, Poppe says. But because the plants have only two
and a half months in late summer and early fall to become
established, “we need to get a lot of growth very quickly.”
Poppe is among the first researchers in the state to
experiment with fall-planted annual strawberries, which
could become a new commercial crop for Minnesota, Sparby
says. Poppe adds: “If it works, that’s where the
AquaInnovations technology might shine.”
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