Commodity and Grain Fumigation

What gets treated

Milled and paddy rice, wheat and maize, pulses and dhal, dried chilli and other spices, dried fish, copra, tea in store, and packed finished goods awaiting despatch. Bagged stacks, bulk piles and silo contents are all treatable, and the method changes with the shape of the storage rather than with the commodity alone.

The insects involved are the ones that live inside a grain: weevils, borers and the beetles that follow milled products. They spend most of their life cycle inside the kernel or inside the packaging, where nothing applied to the outside of a stack will reach them.

Why fumigation rather than spraying

A surface treatment protects the outside of a bag. It does not touch an egg laid inside a grain in the middle of the pile, and it does not touch the larvae feeding there. When the adults emerge, the population is back.

A gas moves through the whole mass, into the packaging and into the grain itself, which is why it is the treatment used on stored commodities worldwide. It is also why the seal matters more than anything else on the job: gas that escapes is gas that never reached the middle of the stack.

Safety and access

The treated stack or store is placarded and kept under control for the whole exposure period, and mill staff stay out of the zone we agree with you. Where the commodity is food, ventilation is not a formality: the goods are aired as instructed before anyone handles or moves them, and we tell you plainly when that point has been reached.

How long it takes

Sheeting and sealing a stack takes hours, exposure runs longer, and ventilation follows. Bulk and silo work generally needs more time than bagged stacks because the gas has further to travel through a dense mass. Temperature affects it too. We set the schedule against your intake and despatch dates rather than against a standard figure.

What you receive

A written record naming the commodity, the quantity treated, where it was stored, the dates and times of the exposure period, and confirmation of ventilation. For mills running a continuous intake we also report what the job showed about where the infestation is being carried in, because treating the same stack repeatedly without changing the intake is an expensive habit.

What you need to prepare

Tell us the commodity, the tonnage, the packaging and how the stack is built. Confirm the goods can stand undisturbed for the exposure period and that nothing is due to ship out of that stack in the meantime. Keep the floor around the stack clear so the sheeting can be sealed properly at the edges.