Last year, Hoogendoorn Growth Management partnered with BASF Vegetable Seeds, so BASF could gain experieces with various automated growing software and hardware for hydroponic lettuce and tomato.
“Next to the extremely huge learnings we made in modern climate management we’ve seen massive opportunities to improve our own processes and to add value to our genetics. Using the principles of Growing by Plant Empowerment to control the plant balances and optimize photosynthetic activity, we were able to significantly increase the growth spead of hydroponic lettuce while improving crop quality at the same time,” explaines Martin Voorberg, R&D Capital Investment Venture Manager at BASF. “We had the same experience with high-tech tomatoes when production was higher during the winter months compared to references from professional growers. As a consequence, we will increase our investments in the facilities at ‘s-Gravenzande to make all greenhouse compartments ready for automated growing.”
Read the entire article, written by BASF, on Hortidaily.