CO2 GRO Inc (TSX-V:GROW, OTCQB:BLONF). has announced a commercial installation sale of its CO2 Delivery Solutions for a one-hectare (107,000 square foot) greenhouse to El Salvador-based pepper grower Hidroexpo SA de CV.
The Toronto-based company said the transaction is its first CO2 Delivery Solutions sale to a very large greenhouse vegetable grower and its largest sale yet by both the size of the facility and the purchase price.
Hidroexpo operates 36 one-hectare greenhouses totaling 3,852,000 square feet and the deal positions CO2 GRO to expand the use of CO2 Delivery Solutions across Hidroexpo's 35 remaining one-hectare greenhouses. It can also leverage the success to expand its ever-growing number of commercial feasibilities and ultimately sales with very large greenhouse vegetable growers globally, the company added.
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The commercial installation sale follows a successful one-year commercial feasibility which demonstrated pepper plants treated by CO2 Delivery Solutions produced nearly 20% more pepper fruit than plants grown in ambient conditions. For competitive reasons, Hidroexpo stipulated that the terms of the sale including the purchase price and term of the payment plan remain confidential.
“The opportunity to expand into Hidroexpo's additional 35 one-hectare greenhouses over time is exciting,” CO2 GRO vice president for sales and strategic alliances Aaron Archibald said in a statement. “We are thankful to the Florida-based Lipman Family Farms for referring us to Hidroexpo which is one of their contract pepper growers. This endorsement and sale will enhance our business development efforts with other large commercial greenhouse vegetable growers worldwide that are following our progress.”
CO2 GRO noted that the protected agriculture market in Latin America is estimated to be nearly 100,000 hectares but the vast majority of greenhouses and shade houses in these regions cannot employ traditional atmospheric CO2 enrichment as they are in warm climates requiring nearly year-round heat venting, leaving up to 30% more yield unrealized.
As commercially demonstrated with Hidroexpo, it said CO2 Delivery Solutions can provide these warm climate growers with the opportunity to add CO2 to their plants resulting in increased yield, revenue and profits in an ecologically friendly manner.
“After assessing the positive benefits of CO2 Delivery Solutions in one of our facilities at scale, we have decided to deploy the technology to a full one-hectare greenhouse,” commented Hidroexpo general manager Rodrigo Martinez.
“As we have another 35 greenhouses of similar size, we hope to accelerate the purchases of the technology for our other greenhouses over time. We pride ourselves as an innovative company and integrating technologies such as CO2 Delivery Solutions gives us a competitive edge in the Central American pepper production market," he added.
CO2 GRO’s CO2 Delivery Solutions technology is revolutionizing the global 600 billion square foot protected agriculture industry. It creates a saturated CO2 solution that when misted onto plants provides growers that cannot gas with CO2 the opportunity to increase plant yields by up to 30% and profits by up to 100%.
Applying saturated CO2 also suppresses the development of pathogens such as E.coli and powdery mildew, helping to reduce crop losses.
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