Humigator helps potatoes stay disease-free, not shrink

A local invention called a “humigator” is helping potato growers across the country have yearlong control over their potatoes.

Garry Isaacs, the creator of the humigator, developed the first prototype in 1985. He said the name is a combination of the words humid and fumigator. Its primary function is to clean the air of potato storage sites, by doing so the pathogens known for inflicting diseases like silver scurf and black dot disease are taken out.

Isaacs said this is an organic process accomplished without the use of chemicals.

“Nobody has ever thought to remove the pathogens in the air until we came along,” he said.

The technology does so by mimicking the natural process for rain. The humigator sucks in the air and blends it with a little water. It’s then brought to the machine’s tank and the clean humid air is released.

While the humigator has helped many growers prevent diseases in their potatoes — it also helps preventing other things from happening from the vegetable.

“(Growers) sell potatoes by weight and they don’t want them to shrink. We prevent that from happening with the added humidity in their storages,” Isaacs said.

Blake Isaacs, Garry Isaacs’ son and the president of their company, Isaacs Hydropermutation Technologies, said the technology has found its niche with potatoes. However, there are growing opportunities in the agriculture world.

“There are greenhouses and grow houses, a big consumer movement toward urban agriculture with indoor grow spaces, the locavore movement, and the organic movement — we want to help enable those things,” Blake Isaacs said.

Blake Isaacs said the company has sold about 50 humigator units in seven states and two Canadian provinces. You can check out IHT’s website here for all information about humigators as well as contact information.

The company is also hiring, particularly people in sales.