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Purfresh Introduces Crop Yield Enhancement for Solar and Water Stress

Fremont, Calif. – July 29, 2008 – Purfresh, Inc., a leading global provider of clean chemistry-based solutions for the world’s food and water, today introduced Purshade™, a family of unique products scientifically engineered to protect fruits, vegetables and other crops from harmful solar radiation. By acting as a sunshield, Purshade helps growers reduce solar stress on crops, boosting yield, quality and water utilization efficiency.

“Growers have been hit with the perfect storm,” said David Cope, president and CEO of Purfresh. “A changing climate, water shortages, and growing populations moving into the most desirable growing regions all coupled with an ever-increasing demand for more high quality food. While there have been empirical approaches and missed-attempts to provide coatings that address crop stress from solar radiation, we are proud to have had the skills and market insight to engineer a product based on the real physics associated with the problem. The outcome is the Purshade family of products – providing more yield and higher quality given finite water resources.”

Purshade, rated at SPF 45, forms a thin film of millions of microscopic “prisms,” or mirrors, reflecting harmful ultraviolet and infrared solar rays while letting in the rays needed for growth and fruit development. Purshade comes as a wet concentrate that mixes easily with other pre-harvest sprays. Purshade can be applied with traditional spraying equipment, including aerial applications, eliminating the need to take extra trips into the field, reducing labor and fuel costs. Although Purshade provides long lasting protection in the field, it is also easily removed through traditional post-harvest processing and washing.

Depending on the commodity, the region and the seasonal climate, growers may lose between 20 to 40 percent of their crop to sun damage in the field. Studies in countries around the world show that Purshade reduces physical damage caused by the sun, enhances the quality and improves the crop water stress index – allowing crops to utilize available water resources more efficiently and produce more, higher value product. 

“Solar stress on crops continues to be a source of significant crop losses and water consumption, which can be especially problematic in water-limited regions,” said Dr. Eric Wood, hydrology expert and chairman of Purfresh’s Scientific Advisory Board. “In meeting the challenges of global population growth, coupled with those of climate change, the world’s agriculture industry needs solutions for growing more and higher-quality crops without increasing resource dependence.”

The family of Purshade products joins an existing product marketed by Purfresh: Eclipse™—a sunshield developed in the Pacific Northwest and optimized for specialty crops including apples.  Based on Eclipse’s success and experience in studying the physics associated with solar stress on crops, the Purfresh team identified the need for and engineered Purshade. The new family of sunshield products complements Eclipse and addresses today’s agricultural challenges, specifically the increasingly harsh growing conditions associated with row crops, high UV radiation climates, high temperature climates and organic environments.

“The market potential for Purshade is huge,” said Allen Smith, general manager of Purfresh’s pre-harvest business unit. “Fruit and vegetable growers all over the world have been looking for a simple, clean and powerful way to protect their crops, enhance harvest value and deliver more marketable produce.”

“Health-conscious people wonder what we ever did before sunscreen,” continued Cope. “In five years, we hope yield-conscious growers will wonder what they ever did before Purshade.”

About Purfresh, Inc.