FAQ

Moleda is a Dutch-Norwegian company based in Veldhoven, the Netherlands. We develop and supply steam-sterilisation technology for horticulture: equipment that uses heat and water vapour, rather than chemicals, to remove pests and pathogens from plant material and production materials.

Most disease pressure in a crop arrives with the crop itself on the young plants, or on the trays, pots and gutters they go into. Due to the ability to stay on materials and on plant material in latent form it is hard to spot but possible to kill. Steaming both before the season starts removes that carry-over at the point where it is cheapest to deal with, and reduces reliance on chemical treatments during cultivation.

Steam leaves no residue, has no re-entry interval, and doesn’t lose effectiveness as pathogens build resistance. It also stays available as active substances are withdrawn from the market. For growers supplying retailers with tightening residue standards, it removes a compliance risk rather than managing one.

Two. Plantsauna steam cleans plant material before planting, young plants, runners, frigo and ambient material, to eliminate pests, diseases and fungi. Agro-Pure pasteurizes production materials: trays, pots, gutters and other items that move between crops and seasons.

Breeders, propagators, nurseries, glasshouse operators, soft-fruit producers and vertical and indoor farms, proven across multiple crops three nurseries for apple and stonefruit, chrysanthemum growers, flower nurseries for kalachoe, cannabis nurseries and growers, from single-site growers to multi-country operations. Which crops and applications are proven, in trial or exploratory is set out in our applications index, so you can see where your situation sits before you contact us. We generally operate from a problem perspective, if there is a disease problem, we help to solve it across the entire chain. 

Yes, in commercial nurseries, glasshouse horticulture and soft fruit — and we document it. Trials are written up in our knowledge centre, including the results that were flat or negative. If you’re considering a crop or application we haven’t trialed yet, we’ll tell you that plainly and propose a trial with an untreated control rather than a promise.

Currently we operate for Plantsauna worldwide and we also provide service contracts that are costum to your location, currently actively used in 15+ countries across all continents exept Antarctica. Agro-Pure is a product that is deployed in geographic Europe.  

Moleda is a family business, it was founded by families Ekeberg from norway and Barel from the Netherlands. With a wide background in strawberries and as producers they built this product to be ahead of the shrinking chemical kit. If you wish to know more go to our about us page.  

It works within the narrow temperature band where pathogens and pests fail but the plant does not. A controlled cycle brings the material gently up to a preheat temperature, holds it so the plant’s own heat-shock response engages, then runs the kill phase, then cools back before planting. The plant is never shocked, the ramp and the hold are what protect it. 

Immediately before planting, as the last step in handling. Material is cooled back after treatment and planted within a few days, so treatment slots into your existing planting schedule rather than adding a separate operation weeks in advance.

Protocols are set per crop and plant type, a frigo plant, an ambient plant and an unrooted runner all behave differently under heat, so there is no single universal cycle. Our applications index lists every crop and plant type we work with and whether it is proven in commercial use, in trial, or still exploratory. If yours isn’t listed, that’s usually a reason to talk rather than a no: new applications start as a trial with an untreated control.

Production materials — the reusable items that move between crops and seasons. Trays, pots and gutters are the familiar ones, but the same principle applies to any material that touched last season’s crop and goes back into production. Anything that carries inoculum forward is a candidate.

Because clean plants in dirty trays stop being clean plants. Re-used substrate carriers and gutters are a well-known route for soil-borne pathogens and algae to persist between cycles. Sterilising the material closes the loop that plant treatment alone leaves open. 

Agro-Pure is used across different industries as an industrial steamer, where applications vary, from cooking, pasteurizing, and steam cleaning of reusable maters. In horticulture it is used across propagation, glasshouse horticulture, soft fruit, tree propagation, and controlled-environment growing anywhere reusable material cycles fast enough that hygiene between crops is a real constraint. The applications index shows which material types and settings we have running commercially and which are in trial.  

The latent problems that travel with transplants — including Botrytis (grey mould), angular leaf spot, anthracnose (Colletotrichum), Phytophthora and Neopestalotiopsis — and pests such as cyclamen mite and lewis mite. These are the organisms that are hard to reach once the crop is planted, which is exactly why treating beforehand pays. 

A pathogen already inside the plant is protected from anything you spray on it. Treating before planting reaches the material as a whole and removes the inoculum before it has a crop to spread through — so the season starts from a lower baseline instead of chasing an outbreak that has already established and has been able to do damage, once the symptoms are visible there is also already damage.

It reduces what you need, and for some problems it removes the need altogether — but we don’t promise a chemical-free season on paper. What treatment reliably does is lower the starting disease pressure. How far your programme can then be scaled back depends on your crop, site and pressure, and is best established over a season with scouting records. 

No — and it’s worth being clear about that. Treatment removes what arrives with the plant; it does not protect against what is already in the house, in the substrate or on the trays. That is the reason we treat plant material and production materials as two halves of the same job: a clean plant going into a contaminated system meets the same pathogens on day one.

Whilst the temperature ranges of the Plantsauna technology are not sufficient to kill viruses without damaging the plant, Agro-Pure works differently and has proven effective in the steam cleaning of materials that transmit these viruses; research into this is carried out on a case-by-case basis.

We strongly recommend a IPM programme that keeps the situation clean throughout the season, many of our growers use it in combination with UVC, Beneficials, or Vitalfluid.