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Using a Steamroom To Sterilize Pallets of Styrofoam Seedling Container Blocks
High-humidity heat is an effective alternative to hot-water dipping for sterilizing styroblocks. When the styroblocks and their environment was dry, heat treatments were less effective.
A steamroom developed at Lucky Peak Nursery effectively sterilized styroblocks. This room was large enough to handle styroblocks loaded on pallets, minimizing handling and reducing labor costs. The steamroom had to be insulated and equipped with a boiler that had enough capacity to provide steam for several hours. Inside temperatures had to be maintained above 160°F with the humidity above 75 percent. The size of the sterilization room required for a nursery will depend on the number of styroblocks the nursery needs to sterilize, as well as the cost of boilers and other equipment needed for rooms of different sizes.
For smaller nurseries, a small shed may be used to sterilize one or two pallet loads of styroblocks at a time. If a boiler is too expensive, a commercial sauna heater can be used. A device could be fabricated that would periodically spray water on the sauna blocks, creating steam. This approach worked well during MTDC's high-humidity tests.
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