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CapitalPress.com
Friday, January 28, 2022
Idaho Innovators
Making water work harder
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
BOISE — Mike Crist has
spent some 30 years helping
people understand innovative,
technical products so they can
put them to use.
Water has been his focus in
recent years.
“People are paying more
attention to water, fi nally,”
said Crist, owner and CEO
of AgriMaxx. “They are get-
ting more serious about their
water consumption, and
conservation.”
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company sells a system that
he says optimizes water at the
molecular level.
“Every industry I’ve
worked in, it’s trying to help
people,” he said. “It’s not
selling something they don’t
need. It’s selling something
everybody can benefi t from.”
Crist learned of the
approach while working in the
wastewater treatment indus-
try about seven years ago.
The idea that treating water
electronically could make it
more effi cient — “wetter,” in
a sense — was both exciting
and hard to believe.
“I heard all the things that
can be done,” he said. “I knew
why farmers would be skep-
tical. I was, too. I gave it a
shot.”
The patent holder granted
him the right to sell the tech-
nology. Crist started Agri-
Maxx in late 2017, early
on helping a Portland-area
farmer increase his corn yield.
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MIKE CRIST
Age: 54
Title: Owner and CEO,
AgriMaxx
Hometown: Portland.
Lives in Meridian, Idaho
Family: Adult daughter
Brad Carlson/Capital Press
AgriMaxx owner and CEO Mike Crist at a Boise golf
course pond made clearer with help from one of the
company’s systems.
“I had my ‘aha’ moment,”
he said.
The unit, called Energy
System Plus, is an electronic
device that works to “loosen”
the ionic bond in water mol-
ecules as they pass through a
controlled electrostatic fi eld.
Crist guarantees a 20%
increase in yield and a 20%
decrease in fertilizer and
water usage.
“By making a ‘wetter’
water, the result is that the
plant can uptake the water
much easier and therefore
doesn’t need as much fertil-
izer,” he said. “The plant isn’t
working as hard.”
Crist has been book-
ing new customers in vari-
ous industries, and working
with established customers
to install units in additional
locations.
Farms, nurseries, golf
courses and power and food
processing plants are among
the well-suited sites, he said.
The system also can be
used on water that cattle con-
sume, and even to optimize
snowmaking and concrete
curing.
Nurseries are the hottest
market now, as operators seek
to grow stronger, healthier
plants and trees, Crist said.
Golf courses present a big
opportunity as crews look to
Education: Studied
business at Arizona State
University
Career focus: Marketing,
installing technically
innovative systems
grow healthier grass with less
water and fertilizer, he said.
And in ponds and lakes,
blue-green algae control “will
be huge,” he said.
The system is priced in the
low-$20,000s. He said it can
pay for itself in most applica-
tions in six months, depend-
ing on how much is saved on
other equipment or inputs, or
how much yield increases. He
forecasts 2022 sales of $2.5
million compared to $1 mil-
lion combined during the past
3.5 years.
This story fi rst appeared
Nov. 11, 2021.
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