Decontamination of Flower Bulbs using Atmospheric Plasma

"The United States floriculture industry reached a total of $5.6 billion in domestic consumption in
2002 with an additional $111 million in exports. As the industry continues to move towards
mechanized harvesting in order to increase production, the potential for bulb injury and resulting
fungal infection has increased, as well. Current chemical methods to reduce fungal infection are
often costly, impractical, and not completely effective. Atmospheric Glow Technologies (AGT)
proposes to develop a post-harvest anti-fungal treatment for bulbs using the patented One
Atmosphere Uniform Glow Discharge Plasma (OAUGDP®). Our intent is to build upon success
in the military decontamination arena to provide an economically feasible option for low
temperature gaseous decontamination of bulbs for commercial growers. Preliminary
experiments using atmospheric plasma to decontaminate fungal inoculated bulbs were successful
in reducing the population of viable fungal spores on the bulbs by over 3.5 logs. The success of
this effort will be measured not only in terms of the efficiency of fungal neutralization (in terms
of log reduction with respect to time and the volume of bulbs treated), but will also be based on a
preliminary assessment of the feasibility of implementing an atmospheric plasma system in a
bulb harvesting operation."