Iranian Technology Increases Shelf Life of Grains with Irradiation

“The modern irradiation technology can help improve the quality and shelf life of products,” Ershad Talebi said.

“We sent over 120 tons of beans to Isfahan Irradiation Center and we witnessed very favorable results, and we hope that by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), all bean industry activists will become familiar with this technology and keep their products up to date and healthy,” he added.

“By using this technology, we witnessed that the microbial load and larvae in the product were eliminated,” Talebi said.

In a relevant development in 2023, a technological company stationed at the Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute affiliated to the AEOI had also managed to control the Mediterranean fruit fly population and reduce damages to the citrus orchards to less than 1% by irradiation method.

Mehrdad Ahmadi, one of the researchers of the project, called the method as SIT or insect control (sterile male) method, saying, “In this method, the eggs of Mediterranean fruit fly are first grown en masse in the workshop, and artificial food ration is fed to them. When the eggs reach the stage of larva and pupa, they are subjected to gamma radiation.”

“In gamma irradiation, a special dose is chosen that makes the sperm of the male insect infertile,” he said, adding that the appearance, strength, mating, flight and genes of this insect remain intact during irradiation.

“When these sterilized insects mate with healthy insects in citrus orchards, they either cannot lay eggs, or if they lay eggs, they will not hatch and their population is controlled,” Ahmadi noted.

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