x 53” Budget Cart 4 Wheel Steering Nursery Wagons (Standard and Custom Sizes Available)
Melhem Sawaya
BY DUANE VAN ALSTINE
JANE ROBINSON
The Achillea Firefly is a top perennial pick for Canadian climes. Photo: R. Tschanz | 8
PHOTO:
PHOTO: M. SCHWALBE
PHOTO: M. SAWAYA
FROM THE EDITOR
Greta Chiu | @GreenhouseCan
Safeguarding your most valued asset
Often when I tell people what I do for a living, I find myself emphasizing the technological side of things. Being able to change the indoor growing environment – temperature, humidity, lighting, and more – it’s almost like taunting Mother Nature from within the greenhouse walls. Of course, growing indoors also opens up a world of possibilities, including automation and mechanization. This could not have been more evident on the Canadian Greenhouse Conference bus tour last month.*
Visiting several greenhouse operations in Essex County, one of our stops was at Mucci Farms’ cucumber operation, where their automated mini cucumber packing line was running at full steam, so to speak. From grading to packing, the system’s robotic arms moved 40 to 50 cucumbers per minute into their respective trays.
Mucci’s cultivation side also did not disappoint, with Priva systems constantly measuring the greenhouse’s growing parameters.
their human resources and payment systems. It’s not as easy as it sounds, especially when it comes to securing the information of their employees and customers.
Much like our own personal computers, it is possible for greenhouses and garden centres to have their data hacked into and be locked out of their computer systems, then be demanded payment by the perpetrators to have their systems unlocked again – it’s called ransomware. This idea isn’t new, but it’s not something to take lightly.
According to a recent Deloitte report, ransomware doesn’t necessarily need an internet connection anymore – things have become that sophisticated. As MSN online reports (Oct, 2019), “a recent survey of Canadian organizations found the vast majority (88 per cent) experienced a data breach over the last 12 months.” Though they also note that only 14 per cent have been cases of ransomware.
The good news is, there’s a free fix. According to the same
As technology evolves, your data becomes increasingly valuable.
The operation is also involved in testing Grodan’s award-winning eGRO technology in North America. By collecting and analyzing all of the greenhouse data in one place, the system is able to help predict required actions for the week, such as the number of dry back periods, the total amount of light needed, and so forth, so we’re not overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information. Can you imagine sorting through all that data manually?
Data is important at the retail level as well. At another tour stop, Colasanti’s Tropical Gardens shared their experiences with digitizing
MSN story, Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, has partnered with industry cybersercurity organizations to create the ‘No More Ransom Project.’ The initiatives offers free tools to unlock files encrypted with malware, says MSN, and is available to users around the globe. The RCMP suggests that businesses refrain from paying the ransom.
*Thank you to greenhouse specialists Shalin Khosla and Dr. Chevonne Dayboll of OMAFRA for leading the CGC bus tour.
More CGC coverage to come on GreenhouseCanada.com.
BLUE SPEAR
Stand out from the crowd
NEW Blue Spear English lavender shows off bigger, taller spikes than any other seed lavender. More upright flower stems stand closer to each other for dense masses of color. With an army of stems on each plant and hardy in zones 6 to 8, these big, blue spears command attention in the store and in the garden year after year!
Sunset to adopt more sustainable packaging
Sunset Produce will offer 100 per cent reusable, recyclable, or compostable packaging for all fruits and vegetables by 2025. A decade ago, they introduced top seal to the industry, resulting in a 20 per cent reduction of packaging materials, says the producer. Their new Sunset Cares sustainable packaging includes fully recyclable paperboard packages and Sunset backyard compostable packaging.
The company is also working on innovative, plastic-free paperboard packaging that will allow them to replace millions of flow-wrapped packages with a more environmentally friendly solution. And within twelve months, Sunset will look to test unique sustainable retail models that the company says will have the potential to revolutionize how consumers shop for snacking tomatoes.
Source: Sunset Produce
Electricity demands to rise by almost 200 per cent
Ontario’s greenhouse sector is growing fast. A report by the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) shows potential for energy efficiency to help manage increasing electricity demand in the sector while reducing costs for greenhouses. In Kingsville-Leamington alone, electricity demand is expected to increase by more than 200 per cent from 2018 to 2026. Vegetable and fruit greenhouses are
the largest driver of growth across the province, while cannabis is starting to have an impact as growers ramp up their operations.
The Save on Energy Retrofit program, available through the IESO, can help greenhouses better manage their energy use and reduce monthly electricity costs through incentives to upgrade various equipment and lighting.
The IESO is also inviting proposals through
67.2k Ibs of styrofoam saved from landfill
Teaming up with Ont.-based Pulp Moulded Products (PMP), NatureFresh Farms has distributed 6 million compostable mini cucumber molded fiber trays since June 2018, saving 67,200 Ibs of styrofoam trays from entering landfills.
The greener alternative is compostable, recyclable, and can decompose within 90 days, says NatureFresh. It is made from 100 per cent post-industrial paper waste, which is ground up and mixed with water. During biodegradation, no toxic or hazardous waste is released into the environment.
PMP’s vision is to produce recyclable, biodegradable, and compostable packaging from local waste, while displacing petroleum-based packaging. Currently, PMP uses post-industrial corrugated boxes. They are preparing to implement a program that will enable them to use boxes from their customers, including NatureFresh Farms. Source: NatureFresh
its Grid Innovation Fund from November 18 to February 14, 2020, for innovative indoor agricultural projects that have the potential to cost-effectively reduce electricity demand from facilities during local and provincial peak periods.
Ontario’s greenhouse electricity consumption is forecasted to increase 180 per cent to 3.9 TWh by 2024, up from 1.4 TWh in 2018, driven by expansion in
prime growing regions Essex, Chatham-Kent, Norfolk and Niagara. Electricity consumption related to cannabis is projected to increase 1,250 per cent over the next five years. This reflects how cannabis facilities were only producing product in 10 per cent of the 10.2 million ft2 dedicated to cannabis in 2018. The remaining area is expected to be operational by 2023.
Source: IESO
BY THE NUMBERS
Investing in automation
Source: CAAIN
The Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network (CAAIN) received a federal investment of up to $49.5M in 2019
There are 8 members across 5 provinces, spearheaded by Alberta Innovates and Vineland Research and Innovation Centre
Over the next 5 years, key project areas include automation and robotics, data and analytics, sustainability and traceability
NEW PERENNIALS Top 10 for colder climates
Perennial breeding isn’t just about appealing to the consumer anymore, but the greenhouse grower as well.
BY RODGER TSCHANZ
At the California Spring Trials earlier this year, several new perennial varieties leapt out at me. In particular, I looked for varieties with unusual or extended bloom periods to lengthen their life on the greenhouse bench. Some didn’t require vernalization, while others had a photoperiod/daylength-neutral response that didn’t need short or long days to encourage new blooms. And of course, I paid particular attention to those hardy to USDA Zone 5. Here were my top 10.
1. LEUCANTHEMUM BETSY
Betsy is a new vegetatively propagated leucanthemum. It should generate blooms constantly throughout the growing season as a result of it being daylength neutral.
The flower is large, ranging from five to eight inches in diameter. The mature plant height can be approximately 20 inches. Hardy to USDA Zone 4. GreenFuse Botanicals.
2. LEUCANTHEMUM MADONNA
Madonna Shasta daisies will bloom from seed in the first year without a vernalization treatment. The plants produced from Madonna seed are expected to be very uniform in habit, but in any given seed lot, a small percentage of plants may produce petals with lacey edges. This cultivar is reported to show resistance to bacterial infection. Hardy to USDA Zone 3. Kieft Seed.
3. DIGITALIS ARCTIC FOX ROSE Digitalis ‘Balroxose’ Arctic Fox
PHOTOS: R. TSCHANZ
Rose is an interspecific, sterile hybrid. No vernalization is required to initiate continuous bloom. Pinching of the terminal bud produces a very showy plant. Hardy to USDA Zone 5. Darwin Perennials.
4. VERONICA MOODY BLUES DARK PINK
Veronica hybrida ‘Balmoodink’ Moody
Blues Dark Pink is a new colour for this series of compact spiked speedwell. It can reach heights of 14 inches in the garden. No vernalization is required to initiate bloom, so it will flower in its first year and continuously produce blooms in a cyclical pattern throughout the growing season until frost. Hardy to USDA Zone 4b. Darwin Perennials.
5. ACHILLEA FIREFLY
The Achillea Firefly series of yarrow currently has four colours: amethyst, diamond (white), peach and sunshine (yellow). It has a relatively tall, but sturdy, growth habit that ranges from 18 to 36 inches depending upon colour. It will bloom most of the summer. Hardy to USDA Zone 3. Proven Winners.
6. ALLIUM SERENDIPITY
Allium ‘Serendipity’ is an ornamental onion that can reach heights of 20 inches
when in bloom. It has purple flowers, blue-green foliage and a compact habit producing a tufted ornamental grass texture that is attractive even when not in bloom. Hardy to USDA Zone 4. Proven Winners.
7. SEDUM ROCK ‘N GROW ‘BOOGIE WOOGIE’
Sedum Rock ‘N Grow ‘Boogie Woogie’ is another great low-growing option for the rock garden. Its green leaves have attractive cream-coloured margins, and its flowers are yellow, positioned above the canopy when it blooms in early to midsummer. Hardy to USDA Zone 3. Proven Winners.
8. PHLOX FLAME PRO
This is a subseries of the popular Flame series of phlox. The grower currently has five colours to work with and can expect them to be very well-matched in plant habit, flowering requirements and timing. This series will bloom two weeks earlier than Flame and will have an extremely long bloom window. Hardy to USDA Zone 3. Dümmen Orange.
9. AUBRIETA ROCK ON
This series of rock cress is marketed under the Fleur De Rock banner along with other rock garden genera such as
Delosperma, Iberis and Saxifraga. The Rock On series is available in blue and pink colours. This compact, evergreen alpine will bloom early in the spring but have an extended bloom period. It is hardy to USDA Zone 4. Dümmen Orange.
10. IBERIS SNOWDRIFT
This compact candytuft cultivar is unique in having a late flowering time, blooming as much as four weeks later than other commercially available early cultivars of Iberis sempervirens This characteristic makes it useful for extending the candytuft season for garden centre benches. Hardy to USDA Zone 4. ThinkPlants.
Acknowledgements: Thank you to Greenhouse Canada magazine and Ball Horticultural company for their financial and logistical support on this trip. Travelling by bus with Ball Hort, we were hosted by a number of breeders who shared much information with us.
For more coverage of CAST 2019, flip back to the July and October issues of Greenhouse Canada magazine
Rodger Tschanz is manager of the Guelph Garden Trials at the University of Guelph. He can be reached at rtschanz@uoguelph.ca.
Fighting fire hazards
With new technology being introduced to almost every aspect of our lives, it is not surprising that farming continues to become more technologically advanced as well. As providers of fire and emergency services, it’s not hard to miss the automated controlling systems that have become prevalent in almost every greenhouse that we see. As more and more greenhouses begin to embrace this technology, it also brings new fire safety concerns that owners should be on the lookout for.
New technology can reduce man hours during production and can help save on long-term costs.
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As more new technology enter into greenhouses, so can new fire hazards.
However, it can also create a new hazard in the form of electricity. Most older greenhouses that I’ve come across were not originally wired for automated controls. Owners need to ensure that all new electrical requirements for supplying new advanced systems should be completed by qualified and licensed electricians. Cutting corners when installing electrical components can have devasting impacts on a greenhouse. If a fire were to happen, it could spread at an incredible speed due to the amount of wiring, fabrics, plastics and chemicals that can be found within a greenhouse. Also, when you consider the size of most greenhouses, a fire starting in a central location of the facility can be very difficult to access by firefighters. This reduces the chances of extinguishing the fire quickly.
From insecticides to fertilizers, almost every greenhouse requires a handful of different chem-
icals to assist in growing different crops. While automated systems may help in applying most of these agents, owners still need to ensure that these products are not only stored properly, but that their employees know how to handle them correctly. During a recent inspection of a greenhouse, an acid-based chemical had been found to be stored improperly, uncovered and had spilled out onto the concrete floor. The incident was very recent, but the acid content was so high that a metal shaving laying in the spill had started to oxidize immediately. If employees are taught how to store and handle these chemicals properly, most spills can be avoided, which in turn, can prevent possible injuries.
Regardless of new technology, the storage of plastics and wood pallets within a facility will always remain an issue that owners have to deal with. The majority of greenhouses store these items in large piles, which they often stack as high as possible. The Ontario Fire Code has clauses directly related to pallet storage for indoor and outdoor scenarios. In the event that a fire starts anywhere in or around a greenhouse, pallets are a fuel source just waiting to assist in the rapid growth of a fire. A pile of pallets being stored improperly, either wider and taller than the required height or deeper than permitted, will make for a difficult fire to extinguish.
Basic safety concerns around proper exiting should also be one of the top priorities for owners. The layout of planting rows or tables should always allow for safe access to exits. While the Ontario Farm Code will dictate the locations of the exits in a greenhouse, it is the owner’s responsibility to ensure that all employees can get to those exits safely and quickly when needed. Employees should not have to move items out of the way or make their way through a labyrinth to get to the nearest exit.
As technology continues to develop, so too do the safety features and precautions around it. The one contributing factor that is unavoidable, however, is human error. Owners should always be on the lookout to ensure that they are doing what they can to stop preventable fires.
Jay Plato is acting deputy fire chief of Niagara-on-the-Lake Fire and Emergency Services. He can be reached at jay.plato@notl.com.
VITALITY
The Vitamum assortment shines with large flowers in bold and fresh colours, selected for disease resistance and extended colour retention for simplified production and a long shelf life.
INNOVATION
Years of development have resulted in an assortment suited for all customers and conditions, including unique novelty varieties and family combinations.
PERFECTION
Small details build the foundation for a strong program, and we focus on perfecting those details in our variety collections, Confetti Gardens™, and retail solutions.
HOMERUN SERIES
Featuring large flowers and bred from a family mutation for a perfectly matched mid-season program, Homerun has a fast blackout response time of six weeks and excellent shelf life.
Hitting the 3 C’s of employee management
When managing employees in a commercial greenhouse, always think of the “3 C’s”: communication, coordination and completion.
COMMUNICATION
Clear communication within the greenhouse is required between all levels of staff. Management communicates priorities and directives to the
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Communication, coordination and completion – these three C’s can be easily tackled with digital solutions.
operational teams, who then relay required tasks to employees on the frontline. In turn, staff need to convey operational updates back up the chain. Effective communication doesn’t end when the transmitter sends a message; it requires that the recipient receives, understands and retains the information.
Verbal communication will always be a part of working in the greenhouse. But while face-to-face interaction forms an effective means of conveying simple tasks with urgency, it can be less effective for more complicated matters fraught with important details. Verbal communication also leaves no record or traceability of the information conveyed.
For example, it’s one thing for a scout to tell management that they’ve found a particular pest on some of the plants in a particular zone, but unless the information is recorded, the IPM team will have no way of tracking trends or efficacy of product applications. Taking and storing a photograph of a new pest could enable the team to look it up and identify it.
COORDINATION
Coordination is central to good management, ensuring team members complete required tasks in the most efficient way possible while enhancing the efforts of other team members.
For instance, if the IPM team applies bene-
ficial insects just before the grow team trims or de-leafs the plants, many of the beneficials would be removed and discarded with plant waste. The company will have lost money in insect costs, and greatly reduced the level of protection from them. Verbal communication and white boards are only partially effective. You need a system for tracking and coordinating activity, taking into account that staff are busy and on the move, and that problems and opportunities can arise on the fly.
COMPLETION
Completion is always the end goal. The only way a business stays in business is by completing critical tasks that generate profit.
Nothing is more frustrating to a manager than having to ask multiple times if a necessary task has been completed. And nothing is more frustrating to a team member than being asked again and again if they have completed a requested task.
Having a record of critical errands, the person responsible for completing them, and evidence that they have in fact been completed, are all important for accountability (and sanity).
Equipment maintenance is a great example of this. Greenhouses typically have expensive, machinery that requires regular upkeep. Establishing a schedule for routine maintenance, delegating responsibility to each team member, providing useful task reminders for upcoming activities and having a record of task completion can prevent breakdowns and downtime.
THE BENEFITS OF SOFTWARE
Software can never replace verbal communication in a greenhouse, but it can help. Modern greenhouse software is similar to an automated checklist that is available to everyone in the greenhouse and is continually updated in real time.
A robust software with a well-developed task management system will help ensure that all critical information is communicated to those who need it, valuable information is retained in a database for future use (including photographs and critical notes), activities among teams and team members are coordinated, and the completion of critical tasks is accounted for.
Bob Wiggins is CEO of RedBud SoftWare, Inc. (www.redbudsaas.com).
HawthorneGC.com HawthorneGC.ca
SHOWSTOPPING varieties on display
After years of trialling new and notable varieties, there are still lessons to be learned each and every time.
BY MELHEM SAWAYA
This is the 19th year of the Sawaya Garden Trials, and every year I learn something new. Members of a series (families) can sometimes have the same performance but different colours. Other times, the families are only a collection of different colours of a genus under a certain commercial name, which is similar to a family of adopted kids. It is important to know if a genus is a true family or not for the following reasons:
• If you are growing a cultivar (colour) for the first time and you assume it has the same habit as the rest of the family, then you may be surprised by a totally different product that can sometimes end
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up being unsellable.
• When creating combinations of the same family (genera) and assuming they have the same response, you may be surprised with either different growth vigour and/or habits or different flowering times.
• In our trials, we usually have the old cultivars along with the new addition(s), so they can be compared to the older series in growth habit.
LESSONS LEARNED
There is important information that everyone can take away from the trials. For how long in the season do the plants look good? Are they only
Over 300 people attended the Sawaya Garden Trials’ open house in Simcoe, Ont. this past July, with more visitors in the days that followed.
ALL
PHOTOS:
M. SAWAYA
good in June, or are they great the whole season? It’s important to learn about the flowering power and pattern of each cultivar – that is what I call flower stages.
How long do the flowers last and how fast do they regenerate? Hibiscus loses its flower in one or two days, but flower regeneration is almost instantaneous with multiple generations.
Some petunia varieties go to sleep after the rain and are full of botrytis right after, whereas other petunias are not affected by the rain and the plants keep on flowering in addition to being self-cleaning.
The geranium is one of the most important cultivars. It is great if grown in full sun without any rain on the flowers. If the flowers are not removed after the rain, they will be instantly full of botrytis and will spread to the rest of the plant. Double flower petunias fall into this group.
During the summer, I look for plants that are four- or five-flower generation plants. This means that even after the fifth set of flowers are established, the first set of flowers still looks good, which makes the plants look fresh and full of blooms without shedding of any old flowers or deadheading. An example of this is the gaura, some blue salvias, angelonia, and scaveola.
There is a lot of confusion around sun-loving and shade-loving plants. Almost 98 per cent of plants are more sun-loving rather than shade-loving. Some of the sun-loving plants are shade-forgiving, but will thrive in the sun. It is important to grow the plants right from the beginning in full sun if they are destined to finish in a sunny garden.
In a garden, starting with younger plants will improve their chance of surviving in less-than-optimal landscape conditions. This summer, we grew Non-Stop begonias in full sun and they performed very well. Many Boliviensis begonias were grown in full sun light, and the plants surprised many visitors with their outstanding performance. An example of that is the I’Conia Portofino adopted family, as we will see later in this article.
Over 250 combinations of different breeders were grown in the trials, and they ranged from many great ones to disastrous ones. In last month’s article, I shared details on how you can achieve profitable plant combinations. One of the aspects is to see the combinations in an unbiased trial where the true combinations are proven, and the bad ones are not hidden. So at least by not growing the failures, you
will give your combinations a chance. We had a hanging basket contest, which were combinations created by different growers and will provide many new non-traditional ideas for you to explore.
Yes, these trials are in Ontario, Canada, but we grow plants for the outdoor summer months where temperatures are in the high twenties with high humidity, which allows us to grow tropical foliage plants with the possibility of taking these plants and enjoying them indoors at the end of the season. We will be expanding the selection of foliage tropical plants from different suppliers in the coming years. Know that new products are often times repackaged from older ones, like tropicals with flowering plants and combinations of succulents.
We used to think that some plants will not flower in our hot summers, but new breeding is helping these genera flourish with very surprising success. Access to tissue culture material is providing us with an excellent selection of plants that will perform successfully in our climate and improve the production of older ones. After all, almost all the vegetative stock starts with elite material from tissue culture. Every year, it is cleaned, reselected and built on as the elite stock. This is a big part of why we see better plant material from stock producers.
Every year there are new observations, new materials and new concepts that might keep us ahead of the curve. However, we can only find out if we take notice and try them. We can then either increase their production or drop them the year after, depending on production quality, consumer acceptance and profitability.
Over the last three to four years, over 150 acres shifted from flower production to cannabis production. It’s true that production area is tight now, but its impact is not much at all, which tells us that the flower industry is in a static mode and not growing even when residential building construction is at an all-time high.
That is why retailers, growers, brokers, and breeders share the responsibility in capturing consumer interest and promoting education as a top priority. Any person in this supply chain is part of the solution and if not, then they are part of the problem.
We have to keep learning and communicating with the consumer and the industry as a whole. If one operation fails, it is not an opportunity for other growers, but a loss for the industry.
Vibrant-colored Echinacea series delivers proven Winter hardiness, plus superior flower power and landscape performance across all varieties.
I know of four operations that were once at the top of the greenhouse industry but have since disappeared or dropped to the bottom. The main reasons were their decisions to be closed in sharing their operational knowledge and their know-it-all attitude. I always give the example of how Mother Nature works in the Sea of Galilee, which takes water, gives water and thrives with living organisms. This is a sharp contrast to the Dead Sea, where it takes water but does not provide any. It is forecasted that the Dead Sea will be totally dead in a few years.
That is why these trials were started, why I started Grower Day in 1986, and why I practise every day as a way of life, not just a job.
THIS YEAR’S SHOWSTOPPERS
This past year, we had close to 3000 cultivars. I am going to share examples of what we discussed, homing in on how they could be a benefit to your operation. The following varieties are listed alphabetically and not in any order of importance or popularity.
Agapanthus Bluety (1) Blue is a different bedding plant with blue flower clusters that last a long time. New ones sprout way before the older flowers are spent, ending up with over ten blooms. Agapanthus is excellent in large pots or as a central focus in the garden landscape.
Ageratum Artist Blue (2) is another outstanding blue flower on a well-branching plant with excellent botrytis resistance. That is great for monoculture patio pots or in combinations and as edging in large landscapes.
Alstroemeria Colorita Elaine Orange (3) is one colour of the Colorita compact series that does flower through the whole summer, putting on a great show. Colorita is excellent in large containers or landscape. No deadheading needed since the flowers last a very long time.
Angelonia Archangel Coral (4) is one colour of the vegetative Archangel Angelonia. Angelonia Serenita Rose (5) is one colour of the seed angelonia. Both series are heat-loving plants that will flower for the whole summer and will even get better as the weather warms. Six to seven generations of flowers, without any deadheading, will lead to large masses of flowers and put on an excellent show in containers or landscape. Angelonia should not be planted outdoors until the end of May in our area.
Bacopa MegaCopa Pink Improved (6) is one colour of the best bacopa series
I have ever seen, simply because the flowers stand up to the heat better than any other series. In our trials this summer, all colours of the series flowered continuously until late fall.
Begonia I’Conia Upright Salmon (7) is a Boliviensis begonia. This variety from the I’Conia selection offered an excellent show in full sun and, along with the other I’Conia begonias, performed better than being grown in the shade. This summer, all of our trials were grown in full sun. Many that were supposed to be shade-loving proved to be shade-tolerant but thrived in the sun. My expectations were proven after all these years.
Begonia Whopper Rose Bronze Leaf (8) is the begonia king of the landscape. Whoppers are in between the Dragon Wing and Big begonias. Whopper flowers earlier than Dragon Wing, but not as early as Big. It does, however, branch better than Big. Whoppers are excellent all summer long, not water thirsty, and do not need deadheading. It shows well throughout the whole season.
Begonia Solenia Apricot (9) is one variety of the Solenia Rieger begonia family that excels when grown in full sun as well as tolerating the shade. I like the Solenias because they are versatile and more vigorous than the regular Rieger begonias, making them good candidates in mixed containers, large containers and landscape.
Begonia Waterfalls Encanto pink (10) is another Boliviensis begonia that is vigorous, with loads of flowers throughout the whole season. No deadheading required because it does that on its own. Excellent garden performer and gets better with heat and sun. Waterfalls begonia is great in large containers, especially large hanging baskets. This begonia needs continuous fertilizer when it is constantly watered or in rainy weather.
Bidens Popstar Red (11) is similar to the Yellow Popstar Compact, with long-lasting flowers and can withstand the summer heat better than other bidens. Popstar Red is great in combinations, especially ones that are not very vigorous.
Calibrachoas are the fastest growing genera in popularity among consumers, with their stunning colours, different flower patterns and flexibility in application.
Calibrachoa Chameleon Blueberry Scone (12) is proof of one variety that changes colour with age. This characteristic gives growers the flexibility to grow
just one variety that will also supply them with a combination of different colours.
Calibrachoa Chameleon Double Pink Yellow in pictures #13 and #14 are of the same variety. The first one was taken in July and the second in August, showing you how durability and performance of this variety gets better with age. No deadheading or splitting. Chameleon is like any other calibrachoa – it needs continuous fertilizer. Chameleon is great in straight containers and combinations.
Calibrachoa Cabaret Red (15) is one colour in the most even series of calibrachoa I’ve seen. Cabaret is a medium-vigour series that can be grown in hanging baskets or 4” containers. It is also great in combinations.
Calibrachoa Superbells Unique Mango Punch (16) and Calibrachoa Superbells Unique Golden Yellow (17) are two colours that many growers are not very familiar with. Unique breeding shows off deep foliage colour and vibrant flower colours in a medium-vigour series that performed well in hanging baskets and combinations.
Calibrachoa Superbells Double Chiffon (18) is an excellent double calibrachoa colour-wise with a habit that looks great in large pots even when seen from afar. The Superbells Double Chiffon also makes any combination look richer.
Calibrachoa Kabloom Orange (19) and Calibrachoa Kabloom Cherry (20) are two seed variety calibrachoas that performed well in our trials. Calibrachoas from seed could be safer from viruses or other diseases, with minimal or no shipping problems. All we need from breeders is to give us seed that has a germination percentage.
Celosia Kelos Fire Pink (21) is a vegetative variety from the Kelos selection that is more suitable for outdoor than for indoor production. The plumes last a long time, so it is fairly maintenance-free. Kelos Fire’s pink plumes are like angelonia in the sense that the first plume and the next six to seven flushes of plumes look good. That is why the container looks as if it is exploding with colour.
Celosia Smart Look Red (22) is a seed variety; one of the Look celosia selection. It is one of my favourite celosia for its bright solid red plumes. Excellent for 4” pots or large pots when given enough production time.
Coleus Heartbreaker (23) is one of the many coleus varieties that stands out for its colourful leaves and growth habit.
Heartbreaker is a vigorous grower but is solid and responds well to growth regulators with excellent garden performance.
Cuphea Vermillionaire (24) is a different cuphea that will take some dryness without totally collapsing like some other cupheas. If you’re looking for something different, birds love this excellent garden performer. It provides loads of little trumpets that hummingbirds love.
Diascia Towers of Power Apricot (25). Normally I do not like diascias because they do not take the heat well, but this variety never stopped flowering throughout the whole summer and had an excellent growth habit. It could be an excellent addition to any combination.
Dipladenia Opal Yellow (26) is not a good growing variety in the greenhouse due to the fact that it does not branch. However, when it is growing in the garden, it shines, branches and fills out with yellow flowers.
Dipladenia Bella Hot Pink (27) is one of the best dipladenias I have ever seen. Bella Hot Pink is a sturdy thick
vine that is loaded with very long-lasting hot trumpets. Dipladenias are the highest class plant you could ever have in your garden. They are drought-tolerant, their blooms last a very long time, and they never stop flowering. The hotter and sunnier it is, the better the garden performance of dipladenia. Next year, we are going to have a significant number of different dipladenia varieties.
Dorotheanthus Variegated (28) is a waxy leaf trailing variety that enhances many combinations and in the summer, the little red flowers are a bonus. Needless to say, Dorotheanthus is very drought-tolerant and overwatering does not kill it. Try to plant the Dorotheanthus in the middle of your combination where only one cutting will branch, giving a nice contrast to any flowering variety you plant with.
Garden Party Diane (29) is one of the perennial party combinations that performed very well in our trials. Rooted liners were planted towards the end of May and they were ready mid-July. They
stayed looking great the whole summer long, and then I planted them in my garden to enjoy for the next season.
Gaillardia Spintop Red Starburst (30) is a first-year, no-vernalisation variety that flowers all summer long. I would try to include Spintop and other first-year perennials in annual combinations.
LAST BIT OF ADVICE
Always try new varieties and if all works well, increase production the next season or drop it. It has been established that new varieties you have never grown before are the number one reason for shrinkage in production, but learning to grow the new varieties and including them in your program is a must.
Next month, I will share the remainder of my selected varieties with you.
Melhem Sawaya of Focus Greenhouse Management is a consultant and research coordinator to the horticultural industry. Contact him at mel@focusgreenhousemanagement.com
Robotics and automation could address production challenges
But the approach to integrating the solutions is more important than the individual solutions themselves.
BY MELANIE EPP
Canada’s greenhouse vegetable sector faces a great many challenges, including labour regulations and minimum wage requirements, availability of labour, and how to manage future human resource needs in conjunction with technological development. While experts agree that automation and robotics could provide a solution to the sector’s challenges, they also recognize that simply implementing technology is not the right approach. The right approach is an integrated one that’s built from the bottom up.
TARGETING PRODUCTION CHALLENGES
Following a workshop held to discuss emerging technologies last year, Niki Bennett, science coordinator at Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers (OGVG), shared some of its outcomes. OGVG, which represents 70 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse sector, hosted the workshop and co-facilitated it with the Ontario Ministry of
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Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA). Ontario greenhouse growers, researchers and local Windsor-based automotive automation companies were invited to provide feedback on the sector’s biggest challenges and potential solutions. The resulting list included several areas where innovations are needed.
Data, says Bennett, is a big one, including anything to do with analyzing data, cluster modeling and software development. Many of the tools currently available could be further integrated, and not doing so can sometimes limit the returns received from implementing them.
The sector could also use additional tools for resource optimization and integration, she adds. Many tools are needed to not only grow the crop, but to ship it as well, like pallets and packing boxes.
“We need to further our supply chain integration, making sure that we have what we need, when we need it, [and] at the right time,” she says.
This robotic cucumber harvester is one of several innovative projects being developed at Vineland Research and Innovation Centre, in collaboration with other partners in the sector.
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Additional integration will improve quality control, making sure that greenhouse vegetables exceed market standards. Growers will look to automation for help in reducing energy consumption, labour costs, and shrinkage.
A HELPING, ROBOTIC HAND
Jos Balendonck, a researcher from Wageningen University and Research (WUR) in The Netherlands, sees the same challenges in Europe, and adds a few more to that list. Demands are high in greenhouse production, he says, and it’s difficult to find skilled labour on time. Greenhouse growers are also up against environmental and food safety legislation and are being watched closely by consumers for their use of pesticides and other resources. Plus, growers need to deliver quality product to their customers on time.
Meeting these demands is always a problem, he says. “But we think information technology and robotics will help growers to cope with these demands.” By using this new technology, they get an extra pair of eyes and hands – as well as minds – in managing their greenhouse.
WUR takes a different approach to addressing these challenges. As a public research institution, they do not have the funding to commercially develop the innovations and bring them to market. Instead, they work together with industrial partners and the greenhouse sector on R&D and innovation projects that are funded by a combination of public and private sources. They take on the task of developing new innovations, available as generic submodels used in building several types of robots like the Sweeper robot, which automatically picks sweet peppers when they are mature. The industrial partners and sector are involved early on in the process, leading to a higher chance of success of bringing it to market.
Developing a robot for use in a greenhouse can be very challenging, though.“The greenhouse environment is actually pretty hostile for robotics and automation,” Bennett points out. “It’s very dynamic, it’s very humid, [and] there is a lot of movement and variables. It’s a much more dynamic environment than humans see it.”
Speed of operation and high capital costs also impede their implementation. While the environment might be harsh on robots, Balendonck points out just how difficult it is to have humans complete the more complicated tasks in a greenhouse.
“For instance, if you want to know everything about the crop you have [in] a greenhouse of 30 hectares, it’s very tough to send in people to scout the whole greenhouse [to] see every plant and how it’s performing,” he says. “Instead, you could send in a robot and it gives you information on every square inch.”
But if one wants to take a more holistic approach, it means looking beyond the technology itself, and evaluating implementation, delivery and maintenance. It also means safeguarding the health of the plants. Greenhouse tomatoes literally hang by a thread. If the robot were to pull that thread, the whole plant could end up on the floor. These are operational details that will impact the efficiency and safety of the robot, the speed at which it works, as well as its overall cost.
University of Guelph engineering professor Dr. Medhat Moussa knows these challenges well. He’s spent the past many years working on Guelph’s Intelligent Greenhouse Automation System – or GIGAS for short. Moussa says GIGAS takes a data-driven approach, monitoring every plant in the greenhouse on a regular basis. Doing so allows the end user to build a plant profile that helps reduce uncertainty and overcome clutter. It
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Dr. Medhat Moussa with GIGAS, a robotic system that aims to perform greenhouse labour at reasonable costs.
also provides growers with an overview of their entire operation, including long-term yield prediction and ways to improve labour productivity.
GIGAS has also expanded to include other important tasks, such as scouting for diseases and monitoring plant growth. A prototype of the scouting robot has been in its testing stages at a commercial greenhouse in Leamington, Ont.
“It is very easy to say that I am going to have a robot that picks up a tomato,” he says. “I can test it in the lab and publish a paper on that.”
“[But] while something can happen in the lab and show great promise,” he adds, “when you actually ... implement it in the field, it’s a totally different story and you might actually end up failing.”
SIMILAR PROJECTS RECEIVE GOVERNMENT FUNDING
Last year, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada announced a federal investment of up to $5 million to the Automation Cluster, led by Vineland Research and Innovation Centre (Vineland), under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership. The funding will be used to develop and test a robotic harvester for greenhouse cucumbers; to develop smart, wireless irrigation technologies for potted flowers and vegetables; and to develop an automated solution to harvest mushrooms. The cucumber-harvesting project is in its infancy and faces similar challenges to GIGAS.
“There are a lot of elements that are needed to develop that type of technology,” says Dr. Tania Humphrey, chief scientific
officer at Vineland. “There are layers of complexities and different elements, including vision systems to be able to detect cucumbers and be able to figure out the green of a cucumber and the green of a leaf or stem.”
“Then there’s the whole element of designing the grippers and the arms, and then coordinating the arms,” she continues. “There’s going to be a conveyance system, a kind of platform that moves between the rows with the robotic arms attached.”
Collaborating with industry partners such as OGVG, Vineland plans on working with greenhouse growers to develop the best system possible.
“These technologies are very complex and sophisticated. There are various elements of them being done elsewhere and there’s no need to reinvent them all from scratch,” she says. “The only way these types of projects will succeed [is] if you work with multiple partners – with academic collaborators and company partners on manufacturing and engineering, as well as constant back-and-forth with growers in the commercial environment.”
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Sweeper, the sweet pepper harvesting robot, was a unique prototype developed to reduce labour at harvest.
GH_AndyLang_June2016 copy.pdf 1 2017-10-17 9:45 AM
“Everything we develop has to be
applied in that commercial environment,” adds Humphrey. “It has to meet a realistic payback period to make these systems affordable to growers. You’ll get further quicker if you work with partners.” Earlier this year, a $40.5 million federal investment was announced for the Canadian Agri-Food Automation and
Intelligence Network (CAAIN) to boost automation and digitization, building on artificial intelligence, robotics and precision agriculture.
CAAIN will be spearheaded by Alberta Innovates and Vineland, in partnership with Alberta’s Olds College and Lakeland College.
MODERNIZATION Which is the right retrofit?
When upgrading your existing greenhouse, be sure to have clear goals in mind to avoid needless spending.
BY DUANE VAN ALSTINE
This is the time of year to begin planning for next year’s greenhouse building projects. While many growers are eager to plan new construction projects and expand, sometimes the best dollar value is achieved by retrofitting and modernizing their existing greenhouse structures. To ensure retrofits are being installed as efficiently as possible, it’s important for the grower to know foremost what they’re hoping to accomplish.
Typically, reasons for retrofitting fall into three buckets: improving crop, reducing costs, and producing more. In today’s economy with labour shortages throughout North America, there’s often a fourth goal in driving greenhouse improvements: increasing labour efficiency.
The following are problems already faced by many growers, and they can be resolved by simple improvements on already existing structures.
TARGETING LABOUR EFFICIENCY
One of the biggest expenses for growers today is labour, so it’s vital that an employee’s valuable time is used as efficiently as possible.
Increase automation. Environmental factors including irrigation, fertigation, ventilation, shading and lighting can all be automated with simple or more complex control systems. Rollup sides are another area that can be operated with a motor and connected to your environmental control computer. Any areas in your greenhouse where employees still have to manually adjust the environment takes away valuable time from more important plant care tasks including disease inspection and pruning.
installations and will not disrupt production.
Use transportation carts. Double-rail carts on heating pipes span the width of a greenhouse and can dramatically reduce employee travel time while picking and packing. Trolley carts in the main aisle can be loaded and moved from greenhouse to greenhouse, filling it on the way to the shipping area.
Process mapping to redesign layout. When a grower analyzes the lifecycle process within the greenhouse, it may show that changing where aisles are located, or rearranging benching layouts or production zones, could reduce material handling and employee travel time.
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Not only can flood benches help to reduce irrigation and fertilization costs, they can also reduce incidence of disease.
Improve ventilation. Adding more ventilation or just HAF fans to move more air around the greenhouse is a quick and fairly inexpensive way to improve production. If the greenhouse gets too hot in the summer not only will it affect the plants, but it will also affect the employees. Creating a more comfortable work environment will result in a more productive workforce. Most ventilation upgrades require fairly simple
INCREASING PRODUCTION
More efficient production doesn’t necessarily involve adding more structures. It can be realized in an existing greenhouse with a few simple retrofits.
Installing rolling benches to replace stationary benches is a simple way to increase production without losing any crop production. Rolling benches remove the need for a dedicated
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Adding supplemental lighting and shading, as well as simply checking the seal around vents, can all improve production.
aisle between every bench, adding about 25 per cent more growing space and enabling employees to move more efficiently between them.
Flood floors are an excellent option for reducing aisle spacing, packing in more plants per square foot. If there’s enough area to justify it, robots can also be installed for adjusting pot spacing on the floor to make sure everything is being watered as efficiently as possible. Growers should be aware that flood floor installation requires that everything is moved out of the greenhouse, which will cause a disruption in production.
Reglazing the roof is part of the regular maintenance schedule when growing in a poly greenhouse, but even 8mm PCSS roofs, acrylic and glass structures can become damaged or dull. Growers should review their roof glazing and consider the light levels necessary to get more production out of their greenhouse.
Supplemental lighting and shading. If the flowering cycle of your crops can be manipulated by adjusting light levels, then supplemental lighting and a curtain system are ways to get an extra crop out and can even provide an opportunity to better time market readiness for the next buying season.
IMPROVED CROP ENVIRONMENT
Greenhouse technology has improved and an older greenhouse may not be providing the best environment possible to maximize production.
Increasing ventilation in a greenhouse is one of the simplest and most cost-effective retrofitting methods used to improve the environment for crops. Rollup curtains can be added onto any hoop house or poly end walls and can
be manually operated or automated with a simple motor. Hard glazed sides and ends can also be fitted with vents, and in most cases the existing sidewall glazing can be reused. Gutter vents and ridge vents can be added to most greenhouse arches easily and with a little expertise. Adding more ventilation to your greenhouse structure allows better flexibility for your growing environment, reduces humidity, increases airflow and helps to strengthen the plants.
The kinds of retrofits necessary will depend on the goals of the grower and will differ between greenhouses.
Raising the roof of the greenhouse may help to improve the growing environment. This option can sometimes be more costly than building a new structure from scratch, but it is a quicker process. A qualified greenhouse builder with experience in raising greenhouse roofing should be involved in this kind of project. Modern commercial greenhouses are being built with 16 to 24 feet under gutter heights.
REDUCE OPERATING COSTS
Install energy curtains. More growers are choosing to install energy curtains for the improvements they can make to the greenhouse environment and for the significant energy savings. By keeping the heat in through the winter and by shad-
ing the greenhouse through the summer, growers can see energy savings of between 20 and 40 per cent when used in conjunction with their other environmental controls. Curtains can easily be installed and are an excellent option for growers looking to retrofit their greenhouse to save on operating costs.
Check ventilation. Over time, the rubber seal around vents may need to be replaced as they can become brittle or malformed due to sun exposure, rain, wind and snow. Vents that aren’t sealed properly will negatively affect their operation and will cost growers money as the heat is directed out of the greenhouse. Roof ventilation in modern greenhouses uses EPDM (Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer) rubber, which is more durable than other vent rubbers.
Flood benches help to control irrigation and fertilization costs. By recirculating the water, unused fertilizer is available for the next cycle. It’s an environmentally friendly option that also helps to lower disease in the greenhouse by keeping the leaves dry. The savings in water and fertilizer will justify the cost of the benches.
All in all, the kinds of retrofits necessary will depend on the goals of the grower and will differ from greenhouse to greenhouse. Consult professional greenhouse manufacturers to determine what can be done to improve your existing greenhouse as efficiently as possible.
Duane Van Alstine has been in the horticulture industry for 20 years, previously having been the operations manager of a 380,000 square foot facility. In 2011, he left the greenhouse to take on Special Projects for GGS Structures Inc. For more on energy curtains, visit ggsstructures.com
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Growing greenhousethe strawberry sector
Family-run farm fills the need for strawberry nursery plants in this growing greenhouse sector.
BY JANE ROBINSON
EZ Grow Farms has grown just about every type of vegetable and fruit known to Ontario. A family-owned operation run by Darryl Zamecnik, his wife Helen and his brother Jarrod for the past 48 years, they added a new crop when Darryl’s son Dusty joined the business. That’s now feeding a growing consumer demand for year-round local strawberries.
A first-of-season favourite, strawberry production has made big strides over the last few decades, including ever-bearing varieties that help extend the short, sweet season. EZ Grow has been producing strawberry nursery plants for more than 30 years
for strawberry growers across North America. From their Norfolk County location in Langton, Ont., they produce about 20 different varieties to suit local conditions for field production across North America, plus a few of the Caribbean islands.
“We started providing strawberry nursery plants to greenhouses a few years ago when some greenhouse growers in Ontario were first toying with the idea of growing strawberries under glass,” says Darryl. “We had grown blueberries and rose bushes in greenhouses and were familiar with what was involved, so we decided to add it to our mix.”
The industry was also starting to make rumblings
TOP Dusty and his father Darryl Zamecnik with their new automated tray filler that delivers consistent soil to each plug – a process that’s critical for soil moisture, root growth and ultimately plant production.
BOTTOM Strawberry plants destined for greenhouse production are closely controlled to ensure how and when the plant starts its production lifecycle.
PHOTO CREDIT: M SCHWALBE
about how the greenhouse sector needed a strawberry program. Grocery chains were wondering why berries couldn’t be grown under glass to extend the season, like cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers. What the Canadian industry was missing were the proper nursery plants that would be mature and programmed to produce at the right time of year.
FINDING VARIETIES FOR CANADIAN CONSUMERS
“Europe had already been producing
greenhouse strawberries for about 20 years, and Dusty went to the Netherlands and other European locations which got us really started in the greenhouse strawberry nursery business,” says Darryl.
But simply transferring practices used in Europe to grow greenhouse strawberry plants in Canada doesn’t work. “The climate and consumer preferences are very different,” he says. That’s why EZ Grow Farms has invested effort and resources to produce plants that not only develop the kind of strawberries wanted by Canadian
Hoogendoorn’s next generation iSii monitors and controls all climate, irrigation and energy equipment in all types of greenhouses. The iSii is equipped with advanced controls that work according to the principles of Plant Empowerment, which resulted from Next Generation Growing (NGG) research. This way light, temperature, humidity and CO2 are aligned with each other for a maximum photosynthesis. In addition, to prevent water stress, irrigation is driven by the evaporation energy and water balance of the crop. With the iSii process computer, you set the base for high quality production.
consumers, but are also tailored to our unique climate.
The strawberry plant is a very complex creature. Successful growing techniques are generating plants that range from June-bearing varieties which produce for three to four weeks, to ever-bearing varieties that yield up to 12 months based on the correct conditions provided in a greenhouse. “The market is further segmented based on varieties that need more or less chilling to initiate flower production,” says Darryl. “And we control the biggest part with our nursery plants –how and when the greenhouse strawberry plant starts its lifecycle.”
What the Canadian industry was missing were the proper nursery plants that would be mature and programmed to produce at the right time of year.
IDEAL FLAVOUR IN EVERY PLANT
Aside from the obvious appeal of enjoying local, fresh strawberries all year long, other factors are driving the demand for greenhouse strawberries.
“Fruit studies and taste panels on greenhouse strawberries all reveal that the fruit tastes ideal,” says Darryl. “You can get the fruit quality in field production, of course, but rain and temperature can make drastic changes. In the greenhouse, that ideal flavour can be there in every plant, every day.”
Darryl also expects that the price and consistency in quality of indoor-grown strawberries will begin to give the greenhouse product more space on grocery store shelves.
QUALITY BEGINS IN THE SOIL
When EZ Grow Farms first began supplying greenhouse growers with strawberry nursery plants in 2009, they filled each plug of every tray by hand with a soil mixture. The root plug was then inserted to grow out the plants in their own greenhouses before shipping to greenhouse strawberry growers for commercial production. Filling by hand was labour-intensive but followed the same process that they used for their field
Self
Low
Long
strawberry nursery plants.
Strawberry nursery plants that are destined for greenhouses can require climate-controlled storage for extended periods of time. Mature plants can be stored before shipping to customers in these ideal conditions, depending upon the variety and its end use. A critical number of chilling hours is needed for the nursery plant to produce berries in a greenhouse during the off-season.
In 2018, they took a leap to automate part of the process, providing more con-
sistent soil density for every greenhouse strawberry nursery plant. “We’d been interested in a new tray filler that auto fills the tray plug with soil,” says Darryl. “Improving the consistency of the soil in each plug is critical for soil moisture, root growth and ultimately plant production.”
With support from the Greenbelt Fund, EZ Grow Farms invested in a new tray filler packing machine that auto fills each plug with soil, and tips are then rooted manually.
“Our first year with the filler was 2018.
We had a marked increase in nursery plant quality and our sales of greenhouse strawberry plants are increasing steadily,” says Darryl. “It was a big help to have this support from the Greenbelt Fund because this start up project is really small scale. The funding helped reduce the threshold we needed to take on this investment.”
BOOST TO LOCAL ECONOMY
“We are always interested in new ventures, especially in how the various assets of our operation are utilized,” says Darryl. “We were looking at how to segue some of our existing assets – including our large cooling facilities – to grow greenhouse strawberry plants for a growing market. The other crucial aspect was labour.”
Expanding their operation to automate greenhouse strawberry nursery plant production with the new tray filling equipment has brought additional benefits to EZ Grow Farms. “We’ve been able to offer employees more hours during times of the year when we wouldn’t otherwise have work for them,” says Darryl. “Five of our employees that were part-time are now full-time. And we can attract employees with a competitive salary, yearround work and a health care plan. It’s also dramatically increased our part-time summer labour needs, including students in the local area.”
They are also now able to offer more work to seasonal staff. By collaborating with other farms in the area, they can now provide seasonal employment from the end of March until early November.
A MEASURED APPROACH TO A NEW MARKET
EZ Grow Farms is one of only a handful of greenhouse strawberry nursery plant producers in Canada – and the Canadian market is on par with U.S. production. Darryl estimates the new venture represents about six to seven per cent of their total business. “The learning curve has been steep with our customers,” he says. “But we now have greenhouse strawberry varieties that are keeping greenhouse producers and their consumers happy.”
His advice to others looking to diversify in new markets is this. “Take a slow approach. It’s currently a small market for us but there is definitely potential there.” With the lessons learned in growing greenhouse strawberry nursery plants, Darryl says greenhouse raspberries and blueberries might be next.
Discover my recipe for growth
James Darrow
Jolly Farmer, Northampton, New Brunswick
“We produce about 100 million beautiful young plants for customers in the U.S. and Canada. Seeding begins in November when the days are very short, which is why we use supplemental lighting. After considerable research we experimented with Philips LED toplighting. The results—more compact growth, better root development, and a significant reduction in energy costs—were quite exciting. For the 2018 growing season, we replaced even more HPS with Philips LEDs toplighting. Our customers rely on us to provide quality product and Philips LEDs have helped us in a tremendous way.”
EMPOWERING PLANTS: Assimilate balance
By finding the right balance of sugars created and sugars consumed, you can produce a more healthy and resilient crop while maximizing the plant’s use of available light.
BY PETER GEELEN
FIGURE 1. Various processes in the plant produce and consume assimilates, creating a balance.
This article is part of a series on the concept of Growing by Plant Empowerment (GPE), a global follow-up to a new Dutch growing method called Het Nieuwe Telen (HNT) also known as Next Generation Growing. GPE starts with the natural behaviour of plants, as they are capable of coping with very different circumstances and climate conditions. The plants keep themselves alive by managing three balances: energy, water and assimilates (refer to 2019 Greenhouse Canada Mar/ Apr, June, and Oct). In this article, we will focus on balancing the production and consumption of assimilates and how this knowledge can be used to produce higher crop yield and quality.
STARTING WITH PHOTOSYNTHESIS
Photosynthesis is the starting point for optimizing plant growth. In the process of photosynthesis, carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) are transformed into sugars or assimilates, with the help of energy from sunlight. These sugars can be used as building blocks for plant tissue production and to make new cells, for instance. The biochemical processes responsible for the production of new cells also need energy, which is indirectly supplied by sugars as well. So assimilates have two roles: building material and fuel for plant growth. The plant will always balance its consumption and production of assimilates, as shown in Figure 1. If there is an assimilate shortage, the plant has to cut down on consumption, at the cost of development or quality. Surpluses, however, mean inefficient
utilization of available assimilates, which is also undesirable.
SOURCE–SINK RELATIONS
FIGURE 2.
How climate conditions affect assimilate balance.
In the process of photosynthesis, CO2 and water are transformed into assimilates (sugars).
Green plants contain a pigment called chlorophyll. Along with other secondary pigments, chlorophyll absorbs part of the solar spectrum that we call photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). This is light in the wavelength range of 400 to 700 nanometers – essentially the colour spectrum. Leaves that produce more assimilates than they consume are known as “sources” of the plant. All other parts of the plant which consume more assimilates than they produce are called “sinks.” The main sinks are the fruits or flower buds. Young leaves belong in the “sinks” category because they consume more assimilates than they can produce. But mature leaves, which don’t receive enough light because they are overgrown by younger leaves, also become sinks again when their assimilates consumption exceeds their production. The roots are typically the weakest sink of the plant; they are first to react to a shortage of assimilates (dying roots) or a surplus (quickly expanding roots). See also the section on root growth.
We need to take into account the size and activity of the sources and sinks. For the production of assimilates, PAR light must first be absorbed by the green leaves. The level of assimilate production then not only depends on the light-intercepting area of the leaves (source size), but also on the amount of light
that penetrates through the crop canopy.
In general, when the total leaf area of the plant is about three times as big as its footprint on the greenhouse floor, all light intercepted by the plant is used for photosynthesis. In this case, the so-called LAI is 3 (Leaf Area Index, measured in m2 leaf area per m2 greenhouse area). When the light penetrates more deeply into the crop canopy, the leaves keep their chlorophyll content at higher levels, which results in a higher light use efficiency. This is further improved with an open plant architecture combined with the use of diffuse light.
OPTIMIZING CLIMATE CONDITIONS
When chlorophyll intercepts PAR light, its energy is used to form sugars out of CO2 and water molecules. Oxygen is then released out through the stomata just as CO2 is taken in. To keep the stomata open, humidity should be high enough under high radiation conditions. Findings show that these three climate conditions – PAR light intensity, CO2 and humidity – all influence the production of assimilates, and should always be in balance with each other because each of them can become a restricting factor in the process of assimilate production.
On the consumption side of the assimilates balance in Figure 2, temperature determines the crop’s growth rate, and therefore, the crop’s sink activity. A specific consumption rate of assimilates can be realised with a high sink activity (temperature) and a low sink size, which depends on the plant load, a term defined as flowers/m2 or fruits/m2 on the crop. In contrast, when the plant load is high, the optimum temperature will be lower.
The first situation is the better choice, because now the ventilation rate can be lower when radiation is high. This results in a higher level of
CO2 and better humidity, which in turn helps to keep stomata open. This also means that a low plant load allows for a climate strategy that can help improve light use efficiency. Of course, the plant load should always align with the average available light sum (daily light integral)
year round as well.
JUGGLING TEMPERATURE AND DAILY LIGHT INTEGRAL
To keep your crop strong and healthy day-to-day, start with a constant ratio between the daily average temperature
FIGURE 3.
Managing the daily balance using a constant RTR can result in a strong, healthy and resilient crop.
(affects consumption of assimilates) and the daily light integral (affects production of assimilates). This is called the RTR : ratio between temperature and radiation. A steady RTR results in a constant ratio between growth, fruit set, and harvest and thus a constant plant load.
Figure 3 shows that, depending on the RTR, the plant’s structure can develop towards a leafy, heavy plant with thick stems, or a more thin plant with shorter leaves and longer internodes. There are many different RTR strategies that can be followed. Keeping a well-chosen and consistent RTR rewards the grower with a strong, healthy and resilient crop.
PLANT BALANCE AND ROOT GROWTH
Avoiding surpluses and deficits on either side of the assimilates balance also results in more consistent root growth, which helps to avoid a lot of problems like tip
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Figure 4. The LetsGrow climate monitor shows whether different aspects of the greenhouse climate are balanced and on track.
burn, blossom end rot, inner rot, mycosphaerella, etc. Because the roots are the weakest sinks, they are first to react to a shortage of assimilates (dying roots) or a surplus (quickly expanding roots), which can result in water stress or extreme root pressure, causing the problems mentioned.
In other words, a constantly varying RTR results in irregular root growth. This is also negative for the uptake of nutrients, in particular calcium, which affects the pH and EC values in the rootzone, and the microbiological organisms that live around the roots. All this can cause weaker plants,
lower light use efficiency, problems in quality, and even diseases.
TOOLS TO MONITOR
SOURCE–SINK MANAGEMENT
Monitoring the balances is an important part of GPE. Figure 4 shows the online
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5.
The LetsGrow plant balance monitor provides growers with information to better assess RTR values for comparison. 2
climate monitor. This monitor reveals, at a glance, whether all climate factors concerning the assimilates are well-balanced or not in 5-minutes intervals. This module allows the grower to program his personal optimal strategy for temperature, humidity and CO2 in response to the actual radiation level in the greenhouse. The green bars indicate to what extent the realised climate conditions are optimal. The module provides additional graphs to analyse the minimum factor(s) (PAR, CO2, RH, irrigation) as well.
The LetsGrow plant balance monitor provides the information to assess the realised RTR versus the targeted RTR. In the scatterplot of the upper graph (Figure 5), each dot represents one day within the chosen period of time. The continuous line indicates the average realised RTR. In the lower graph the realised 24-hour temperature is compared with the desired temperature, based on the desired RTR, with margins of +/- ½ RTR.
DATA DRIVEN GROWING
GPE aims to support the plant’s balances to optimize growth. As the different elements of these balances can be monitored using sensors, this approach also paves the way towards data-driven growing based on facts and digital data, which offer many advantages compared to classical methods based on human perception, practical experience, and so-called ‘green fingers’. This will be the main subject of the next article in this series.
SUMMARY
Climate control should aim to combine all climate factors that affect the production and consumption of assimilates, in order to maintain the right balance. The highest level of light use efficiency is reached with a ventilation strategy that focuses on the production side of the assimilates balance. Typically, compared to common practice, this means a reduction of the vent position under high radiation levels, resulting in higher temperature levels. To allow for this, keeping a relatively low plant load is advantageous.
A consistent RTR helps to create steady plant structure and constant root growth, resulting in a healthy and strong crop with high production levels and superb quality, along with higher use efficiency of energy, water, and nutrients, and very low demands for chemical agents.
LEARN MORE
GPE is based on the same principles as ‘Next Generation Growing’ (NGG), developed in the Netherlands over the last 15 years. It has been shown that this approach can deliver significant advantages regarding production and quality, plant health and energy savings for many different crops. For the most part, this can be achieved without extra investments in greenhouse equipment. For more visit plantempowerment.com. Copyrights of text and illustrations: LetsGrow.com, 2019 Peter Geelen is the owner of Plantmonitoring.NL, a private training and consultancy bureau for greenhouse production. Peter is a plant physiologist and one of the authors of the book Plant Empowerment: The Basic Principles
FIGURE
EXPLORING a spectrum of possibilities
In addition to changing light levels, researchers are now using selective colours of light to achieve the desired effects on indoor crops. It’s a whole new playground.
Q&A WITH DR. MELANIE YELTON
From promoting root growth in ornamentals to increasing fresh weight in lettuce, applying a selective spectrum of supplemental light seems to be a gamechanger. In part two of our interview with Dr. Melanie Yelton, the VP of research at LumiGrow shares her thoughts on emerging spectral research and what’s to come.
Why do plants respond differently to different colours of light? Light is the only real way for plants to know whether winter is coming or what’s going on in their environment. As you might imagine, they are very attuned to different wavelengths. One that is very well-studied is far-red and its association with flowering.
As a general rule of thumb, blue light will stress a plant a little bit – it’s almost like us getting a suntan. The plants are asking themselves to make protective compounds to protect their tissue, which translates into a denser, more compact plant with thicker cuticles and leaves. A secondary benefit is this more robust leaf can offer a little protection against fungal infections. I’ve walked one particular cucumber house where they’ve had a couple of HPS acres on the left (low blue, high red light) and LED (high blue) environment to the right. Powdery mildew was all over the HPS side, but not very much at all under the LED side. More and more scientists are studying the underlying mechanism.
Red light is for getting that leaf to expand and the plant to stretch. This could be very important in tomato propagation if you want that long stem to give you a nice space to graft. You can push flowering more with a high-red environment as well. More and more, we’re starting to look into other wavelengths, too. I think there’s a lot of work still to be done on understanding where spectrum plays a role and how it can direct plant growth.
That’s true! We see a lot of literature on red and blue light, but less so about the wavelengths in between. A lot of the work has been limited by the availability of different diodes. As we push the science further and further, it’s going to become more specific to different cultivars and really push the envelope. This is one of the reasons why LumiGrow decided to offer a broad white spectrum and a targeted spectrum, which can be controlled with the red and blue to
ABOVE
Dr. Melanie Yelton shares her insights on using light spectra.
target different plants and environments that require different strategies of growth.
A large part of my research this year will be contrasting those two and understanding when you want one or the other one. We’re working with Dave Llewellyn and Youbin Zheng at the University of Guelph on a cannabis propagation study to look at the impact of spectrum on root development. One size can do a good job, but I want to keep pushing the envelope to do the best. Understanding the impact of wavelength and how it affects growth – we’re just at the beginning of that science.
Would achieving the desired spectrum require feedback control?
We’re currently using the LumiGrow light sensor to adjust our fixtures in response to the light level in the greenhouse. The nice thing about the sky is that the spectrum’s not perfect, but
it’s pretty consistent on a sunny day. There’s a bit of variation at sunrise/ sunset and on a cloudy day. We know the percentage of red and blue light coming from the sun, and that never changes. As we become more sophisticated with using spectrum, spectrum-specific feedback control will come into play.
One of the things we did last year was use spectrum at night. Get all the light you can during the day, then we can use spectrum to direct the plant’s growth at night. If we can get the DLI we need during the day, we can give them a high blue environment at night to create that short thick plant, or give them a high red environment for elongation.
With all these new developments in lighting research, what are you most excited for?
The main ones I’m excited for are the integration of technology for all the different inputs for growing plants, and eventually knowing how to really tweak and use them. I feel like I’ve seen this beautiful symphony of what’s about to happen.
In growing tomatoes you want a plant that’s pretty stressed all the time to make it flower. You don’t want a happy plant, you want a stressed plant that will stay in reproductive mode. Growers have become very adept at alternating between fertigation and dry back – it really is like a dance. I think we can do that with light and heat and temperature drops to push the photosynthates into the fruit.
20 years ago, people weren’t thinking about how temperature drops affect fruit quality. Now we can, and we do them. It’s about integration, and light wasn’t even on the table for a long time. All you could do was turn it on and off. We can use temperature and fertigation as tools, but light wasn’t considered to have enough variability to use. Now light has entered center stage – we can control the spectrum, we can control the intensity. We can really use light in a way that we could never before. The fact that we can grow more nutritious plants, plants that taste better, and cannabis that has greater medicinal properties – that’s just thrilling to me. I’m excited for the integration that’s going to happen.
Editor’s note: Responses were edited for length.
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GARY JONES | Gary.Jones@kpu.ca
Workers of the future
Having a little ‘down time’ over the summer, I was catching up with the latest edition of ‘The Horticulturist’, the journal of the (UK) Chartered Institute of Horticulture. An article by researchers at Wageningen about artificial intelligence in horticulture caught my eye. In it, authors Hemming and Nieuwenhuizen1 outline the basics of ‘deep learning’, the conditions required to make it succeed (abundant, labelled data and enormous computing power/memory) and some examples of how it is being applied to modern horticulture. The examples they mention include harvesting robots (‘SWEEPER’ for peppers), hedge trimming robots (‘TrimBot2020’), and autonomous pest and disease detection and control systems (e.g. ‘Scoutrobot IRIS!’ developed by Dr. Saber Miresmailli’s company Ecoation here in BC, and ‘Plantalyzer’). Greenhouse Canada has covered other examples of greenhouse robotics over the past couple of years.
“Deep learning is a way of learning from data that is inspired by the human brain.”1 A (horticultural) task is digitised using object recognition and movement simulation technology as a human demonstrates the task. A robot is then instructed to perform the same task, and over repeated attempts (‘reinforcement learning’) it ‘learns’ how to do it better. One study has shown that artificial intelligence can now compete with experienced human growers and even out-perform them when operating a model autonomous greenhouse.1
capacity drones, builders and glaziers? (By the way, what is the collective noun for a group of drones?)
But it’s not all good news when it comes to AI and automation...
The next step is having robots teach other robots. You may have seen those mind-boggling light shows utilizing over 500 drones flying in formation at large sporting or promotional events. (If you haven’t, do a quick internet search.) These are examples of how systems can share information –in this case location – with each other. I know it conjures up terrifying scenes from ‘I-Robot’, but applied to horticulture, we can see opportunities for this so-called ‘hive mind’ to relieve humans of large scale repetitive tasks. Consider for a moment, could it also (eventually) be applied to highly skilled but dangerous jobs such as building a greenhouse structure? Can you imagine your next one-hectare, downtown hydroponic rooftop veggie greenhouse being erected by an army of heavy-lift
Technology is for sure going to help horticulture as we continue to battle the issue of finding sufficient people to get the job done. As we’ve mentioned before, recruitment of fresh faces and new blood has been a challenge for our industry across the world for a long time. We will still need people. At an industry strategic planning workshop recently, a consultant expressed that we will be “finding people for jobs, not finding jobs for people….The company H.R. Manager will in the future be more important than the company Chief Financial Officer – H.R. people will be more critical to company success than financial managers.”2 Quite right. That said, the emphasis on the jobs people are hired to do may well change. Someone has to teach the robots what to do. And fix them when they go wrong. For the time being, at least. But it’s not all good news when it comes to A.I. and automation, and I, for one, don’t see drones or robots as being the only long-term answer. Sometimes the outcomes are a little unexpected. Perhaps you’ve seen clips on the news of drivers being caught asleep at the wheel of their car when set in automatic mode while whipping down the highway. Unfortunately, many times these cars are not truly autonomous self-driving vehicles, but are simply equipped with driver assist technology. Hopefully, there have not been too many catastrophic endings. Clearly there is opportunity for lots of human education as to the current limits of where we are at and what our technology is doing for us. And opportunity for humans to be more ‘hive-minded’ and teach each other better. I guess the question is, who is going to do that education – humans or robots?
1 Hemming J. and Nieuwenhuizen A., (2019) ‘Deep Learning and its application to horticulture’, The Horticulturist 28(2) p12-14
Gary Jones is faculty member at the School of Horticulture, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Langley, BC. He sits on several industry committees and welcomes comments at Gary.Jones@kpu.ca.
