Since 2007, Grodan has invited crop consultants, scientists, partners, and other stakeholders from all over the world to meet at the Green Expert Platform. This fruitful platform is a true knowledge exchange forum, where Grodan tests and challenges industries’ believes and opinions. On the 13th of November fifty delegates from all over the world gathered in Delft and Bleiswijk to share and learn.
Andrew Lee, our Technical Services Manager at Grodan, is the founding father of the event. He is very clear on the objectives of the forum: “With this event, I want to bring an element of science back into consultancy. In that way, our crop consultants are up to speed with the latest research and developments in our sector, and can transfer these insights to growers. At the same time, the event is a sounding board for scientists as well.”
Andrew explains the horticultural sector has an important role to play in addressing the current challenges of the global food system. “By 2050, we need to feed 10 billion people with less resources. To tackle this, players in our industry are already looking at lowering the energy footprint of the greenhouse itself, developing closed systems to optimize our water and fertilizer usage, and introducing mechanization and robots into the greenhouse. At the Green Expert Platform, participants could deep-dive into some of these new solutions and innovations,” explains Andrew.
Imaging technology and medicinal crops
During inspiring days, several experts and researchers from Grodan and partners shared their latest insights. For example, Gursel Karacor, Senior Data Scientist at Grodan, discussed the exciting role imaging technology can play in crop registration and optimizing the quality and sustainable production of our vegetables. Representatives from Ridder and Carbon Gold gave a peak into the latest developments in closed system drain water recycling and root zone biology. And Frank Janssen, Sonny Moerenhout, and Marielle Taft from Grodan, together with Filip van Noort, scientist and Crop Specialist at the Wageningen University & Research, discussed the most recent research developments in greenhouse-grown medical crops.
“To me, this edition of the Green Expert Platform truly showed that our industry is addressing our global food system challenges together. This is very encouraging and I am very much looking forward to next year’s edition,” concludes a happy Andrew Lee.
If Grodan were a country, it would be one of the most successful recycling countries in the world. In 2022 alone, Grodan achieved a recycling rate of 65%! By comparison, Germany, considered the most efficient recycling country in the world, has a recycling rate of 68%. Nevertheless, we are not satisfied yet and are working on better and more recycling solutions worldwide.
In summary, utilizing new high-tech devices and software, such as the new Grodan GroSens sensor and e-Gro, in cultivation facilities is vital for achieving precision, efficiency, productivity, compliance, risk mitigation, and maintaining a competitive advantage. These tools empower growers with accurate data and advanced analytics, leading to improved cultivation practices, higher yields, and better crop health.
Due to various challenges facing growers nowadays, it is becoming increasingly interesting to cultivate strawberries in high-tech greenhouses all year round. Stone wool is known to achieve demonstrable benefits as a growing medium for various other protected crops. However, little practical research has been conducted into its suitability for strawberries. That’s why Grodan decided to validate the performance of stone wool growing media in a real-life trial together with the Delphy Innovative Soft Fruit Centre (ISFC) in the Netherlands. We asked Vera Theelen, Researcher Soft Fruit at Delphy ISFC, to tell us more about the trial results so far and their implications for the strawberry market.
This year, the focus of the United Nations observance is how to accelerate the change needed to solve the water and sanitation crisis. The global campaign is called “Be the change”. The aim is to encourage society to take action and change the way we use, consume and manage water. As Grodan, being an active member in this society, our aim is to provide the best solutions and provide high-end services that can support growers to “Grow more, with less” and change towards a sustainable way of growing while respecting natural resources.
We are a global leader in the supply of innovative stone wool substrate solutions for the professional horticultural based on Precision Growing principles.
