The Isan water disinfection system was selected by delegates at the 2005 Australian Hydroponic and Greenhouse Industry National Conference, as the winner of the Best New Product Award. The fully automated Isan system, which uses iodine instead of chlorine for water disinfection, is rapidly revolutionising the hydroponic and nursery industries due to its ability to effectively kill micro-organisms, while also increasing plant quality and increasing growth cycles.

Developed from a NASA concept, the Isan system is increasingly being adopted across a wide variety of industries for a number of different applications, which include post-harvest fruit and vegetable sanitation, food processing and waste water recycling.

"This is another major achievement for Ioteq. It is additional confirmation of the tremendous difference we are making to the operational and financial success of our hydroponic and nursery customers around Australia", Ioteq CEO Peter Klein stated.

"When you receive testimonials from customers highlighting how they have achieved significant differences in plant quality five days after installing a system and are recording significantly faster growth cycles leading to increased revenue opportunities, one knows that Ioteq is offering market leading solutions" Mr Klein added.

The world class nature of the Isan system has resulted in it being awarded numerous prizes, including the 2004 Inaugural DuPont Innovation Award for Agriculture. Recognition of the system's environmental, food safety and consumer health benefits has also led to substantial support from Federal and State Governments.

By avoiding carcinogenic by-products, which can be an issue with other types of sanitisers and disinfectants, the Isan system has gained FSANZ approval. Importantly, with the iodine being supplied in sealed canisters, there are no OH&S issues.

Other major benefits of the Isan system include:

• Does not require pH monitoring
• Iodine does not react with nutrients
• Protects the integrity of cell walls
• Iodine in solution offers a residual
• Low capital and running costs
• Less corrosive than other types of disinfection systems
• NFT compatibility

Additionally, with its PC-based computer control, Isan installations are easily operated and maintained, and can be remotely linked for in-office monitoring and adjustment.