The seminar, held in August 22nd in Santiago, counted with talks of researchers from ARS and APHIS, agencies dependant on the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Phosphine has been utilized worldwide for more than 75 years. In 2005, Fosfoquim developed and patented a unique method to fumigate fresh fruit with pure phosphine at low temperatures, which is currently being used in Chile by the fresh fruit export industry.
More than 15.000 succesful fumigation has been performed by Fosfoquim in Chile for several countries, including USA, Mexico, Colombia, Japan, South Korea, Iran, Panama, Europe and Rusia, among others.
Phosphine has been used with great succes for insects control in apples, pears, table grapes, peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, oranges, lemons, pomegranate and others.
As a result of an international research agreement in between ARS, Fosfoquim, Cytec and UC Irvine, a joint research team started looking at this technology in order to evaluate its efficacy against the main insect related trade barriers for Chile and USA. This research its been performed in three laboratories located at Fosfoquim facilities in Padre Hurtado, Chile, and ARS facilities in Parlier, CA and Hilo, HI.
This pure phosphine fumigation technology is today the most interesting and viable options to replace methyl bromide as a quarantine treatment. Methyl bromide is a ozone depleting substance listed in the Montreal protocol. Today, table grapes export from Chile to USA are responsible for 60% of methyl bromide usage for quarantine purposes in USA.
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