Pot plant cultivation is getting greener. From smart heating techniques to natural pest control and precision farming. Growers are reinventing themselves to achieve their sustainable ambitions. Find out all about it in this article.
Energy-efficient cultivation
More and more growers are striving to become carbon-neutral by 2030. Therefore, they are experimenting a lot with innovative solutions to reduce their energy consumption. And they are making great strides. For instance, as an alternative to fossil fuels, they use geothermal heat via heat pumps (geothermal). Or they use residual heat from industry to heat their greenhouses. Another sustainable alternative? Thermal storage systems (CHP). These systems use groundwater to heat or cool buildings.
Another handy solution to reduce energy consumption: smart air-conditioning systems. These automatically regulate the supply of heat and humidity so that no energy is lost.
And sometimes energy efficiency can also be found in smaller interventions. For instance, we are seeing more and more LED lighting than traditional lighting. A good thing, because LED lamps consume a lot less energy and give off less heat.
Organic cultivation
Besides all these efforts in terms of energy consumption, pot plant cultivation is also doing its bit for our biodiversity. Growers are using less and less chemical crop protection products and opting instead for integrated pest management, also known as IPM (Integrated Pest Management). Here , natural enemies keep pests under control. For instance, predatory mites serve as natural spider mite controllers and parasitic wasps chase away aphids. Natural and efficient!
Does a grower still opt for a plant protection product? Then they increasingly go for an environmentally friendly and organic variant, such as plant extracts and micro-organisms. In addition, resilient plant varieties are gaining in popularity. These varieties are naturally more resistant to diseases and pests and thus less dependent on pesticides. Win-win.
Smart cultivation
Interventions in energy consumption and biodiversity are the basis. In addition, growers are taking a close look at their entire cultivation process. How can that process be made even more sustainable? By growing in a circular way, for instance, with growers reusing residual flows as much as possible. For instance, substrate is recycled in abundance and water is reused. And did you know that plastic pots and trays are nowadays almost all made of 100 per cent recycled material?
Another new cultivation technique is precision farming and sensor farming. Through smart sensors, growers collect real-time data on the growing conditions of their crops. This allows them to irrigate and fertilise their crops very precisely without losing anything. An efficient way of working for growers and yet another sustainable advance.
The new cultivation
“The new farming”, this sustainable way of growing is often called. And rightly so. Growers are jettisoning their long-standing ways and looking for new, more environmentally friendly solutions. Other types of soil, organic fertilisation, new energy techniques … These are fine efforts for greening in our sector.
Efforts that Floréac fully supports. More than that: we consciously choose to work only with growers who join us on the sustainable path. Because only together can we tackle the remaining challenges and work towards fully sustainable pot plant cultivation.