|
 Three
men, in May, 1961, formed a company for the purpose of carrying out soil fumigation by
specialized methods. They were Richard Storkan, a chemical engineer,
who worked for a methyl bromide pest control operator; Robert McCaslin,
who majored in entomology and Jerry Hanes, who majored in plant
pathology, both of whom were employees of the Los Angeles County
Agricultural Commissioner's office. The new company was headquartered in
Los Gatos, Northern California, with a branch office in Santa Fe
Springs, Southern California. These gentlemen brought to the new
enterprise a combined experience of more than 20 years in soil fumigation. Fumigants of that era consisted chiefly of DD, EDB and
chloropicrin.
Initially
the fumigation equipment (shanks, manifold, valves, etc.) was mounted on
the grower's tractor and he performed the application. The field was
pre-marked in 20-foot multiples. The farmer would then inject the
fumigant making two ten-foot passes, cutting a ditch on the outside
edges so the two-mil, twenty-two foot wide poly film could be unrolled
by hand and buried on each side. The following day, an adjacent
twenty-foot area was fumigated and the existing tarp was flipped over
the newly treated soil. This procedure was repeated until the entire
field was fumigated. It is believed the first such commercial
application of chloropicrin took place in California in 1955.
Early in 1957, methyl bromide and
chloropicrin mixtures were introduced, with the application being
followed by tarping. All agreed this was impossible to achieve the
correct mixture and consequent application, but Hanes, McCaslin and
Storkan succeeded. The advantage of using a tractor for motive power in
machine applications is that the injection rate is constant and the flow
of fumigants is continuous. In the line injection method employed by
Trical, pressurized cylinders of fumigant are mounted on a tractor. Air or
nitrogen maintains a constant pressure in the fumigation cylinder. This
ensures that pressure is constant to a manifold, which controls the flow
by means of orifice plates.
In 1962, Storkan experimented with a
nine foot tarp layer in the Watsonville, California area. During that
year, Trical bought its first tractor and mounted an eleven-foot tarp
layer on it. Within several years, the polyethylene companies could
extrude one mil thirteen-foot film, and the application was increased
accordingly. The passes of film were laid during fumigation with ten
foot un-fumigated areas between passes. Twenty-four hours later the film
was removed by a Trical patented tarp puller, and the in-between
strips fumigated. McCaslin developed a hydraulic folding marker arm,
which made a mark for the next pass fifteen feet from the end of the
tool bar. Previously, this had been done manually.
In 1966, Hanes designed the technology
of gluing tarps together, making the fumigation a
one-step operation. Storkan found a fumigation company in North
Carolina that was gluing polyethylene film together with a special
adhesive. In February, 1967, the first commercial solid fumigation was
performed in Oxnard at the Gus Farrell ranch. At first, the glue was
dribbled onto the film, but McCaslin later suggested diluting the glue
with more solvent so it could be sprayed on the film.
Since then, we have worked to maintain our
commitment to Safety, Integrity and Innovation. Over the course of
40 years, we have become an industry
leader
and pioneered soil fumigation applications to help farmers
increase their yield and quality while keeping their expenses in line.
Although we have grown in the last four decades, we know that the
foundation of our growth has always been, and will always be, our
customers.
If our customers
succeed,
we succeed. Therefore, we are ever-committed to
helping farmers increase their yields and quality. We are
proud to help farmers market high quality
fresh fruits and vegetables. |
