Drought has California in a vice grip, but for a local business with a special technology in its bag of tricks, the future is green.

Verdegaal Brothers is a fertilizer company in Hanford, but if you think of giant piles of manure powder or gypsum being dumped on fields, think again: The vast majority of Verdegaal's work is in high-tech fertigation techniques that bypass land application altogether.

"Fertigation" is the fancy new word in the industry that means adding fertilizer to irrigation water and letting the dissolved mix percolate into the plants.

It's the agricultural wave of the future, and in Verdegaal's case it's become a wave of success: The company sends its equipment and its techniques to seven western states and Hawaii.

The company has figured out a way to inject dangerous sulphuric acid -- the stuff in chemistry class that eats through skin on contact -- into irrigation systems.

The effect on the fields is to neutralize the salts that retard plant growth.

This is a problem in many parts of Kings County, particularly on the Westside.

Take Steve Walker. The Hanford farmer grows almonds at 11th and Iona Avenues. The salty ground wouldn't take crops very well. He started adding acid, little by little, using Verdegaal's system. The effect? The ground got "mellowed out," starting absorbing water better. The acid even broke up small rocks in the ground.

Walker said he noticed higher yields of almonds, so he's planning to add the system to all his fields.

"It's more than worth it," he said.

The techniques Verdegaal Brothers uses today had their origins 15 years ago, when the company was shipping sulphuric acid to farmers.

The acid doesn't just eat through skin, but through pipes and pumps as well. Growers were having problems with design, installation, processing and personal safety, said Jim Gregory, an agronomist at Verdegaal Brothers.

Equipment started to literally melt.

According to Gregory, the company "took on the challenge" of finding a way to make it work. They asked metal manufacturers to come up with material that could withstand the powerful acid. They searched for rubber gaskets that wouldn't disintegrate.

And so they came up with designer injector pumps that can do the trick.

Gregory said the company could have gotten it patented, but missed the window of opportunity.

The systems are more expensive through Verdegaal, Gregory said, but customers also get a warranty and regular service. Verdegaal's 45 employees include technicians that travel hundreds of miles to service systems as far away as Texas and Oregon.

In Hawaii, where the company sends material for golf courses, a local provider does the servicing.

In Kings County, it look like one of the biggest sources of future business for Verdegaal is in drip lines, precision irrigation systems that are increasingly common as California's water crisis mounts.

Salty water clogs the tiny holes that allow water to dribble out to the roots of individual plants. The injection of acid chemically alters the salts and helps prevent clogging, Gregory said.

This is becoming a bigger issue because drought has forced farmers to use marginal well water that is much saltier than snowmelt.

And so as long as drought persists, Verdegaal's market niche is likely to flourish.

"We've just been seeing a lot of growth this spring," Gregory said.

The reporter can be reached at 583-2432.

(May 11, 2009)