Richmond Nursery, Ontario adopts HAI by Leviton technology
RICHMOND, Canada, January 11, 2013: Richmond Nursery, one of Ontario’s leading suppliers of ornamental plants has adopted the HAI (Home Automation Inc.) by Leviton environmental control system and has now found a way to control the climate in its site and reduce its substantial electricity and heating use and expenses Richmond Nursery is an eight-acre site that includes more than 15 gutter-connected greenhouses. Altogether, the site has one full acre under greenhouse glass. At any one time, these greenhouses will contain more than a million plants of up to 1,000 different varieties under cultivation — during the holiday season, the nursery can house up to 14,000 poinsettias alone.
All plants require regular watering, light, and climate control, but the vast diversity under the roof of Richmond Nursery complicates their care and makes reducing costs difficult. Previously, the nursery used timers for controlling lighting, heating, and ventilation. However, these timers had to be constantly adjusted as the hours of daylight changed throughout the year, according to Peter Rofner, general manager of the nursery. Timers set early in the spring could result in lights being on after sunrise. “We sometimes had situations where we were paying for two hours of lighting when it was unnecessary,” Rofner says.
Therefore, the nursery needed to find a better way to control the climate in its site and reduce its substantial electricity and heating use and expenses. Some months, its electrical bill reached approximately $6,000 (CAD), and the natural gas bill totaled $4,000 (CAD) a month for heating. The plant nursery’s owners also wanted to improve control over lighting and increase security.
Natural Automation, Greely, Ontario, surveyed the nursery to assess its needs and met with the nursery’s management group about the type of system they wanted. Louis Levetsovitis, owner and chief installer for Natural Automation, decided a HAI by Leviton environmental control system was the best fit for the nursery’s particular challenges.
Levetsovitis felt the system could take on the challenge of controlling the environment for the nursery, ensuring that the heating, ventilation, lighting, and water usage were correct for the million living plants. He also had to integrate gas-fired CO2 burners, which increase the level of carbon dioxide in the greenhouse air to encourage the plants to grow faster, into the system. The nursery’s four Priva burners provide the needed CO2, and they also produce heat and water vapor needed for plant growth. “They look like jet engines,” says Levetsovitis, explaining that to keep the CO2 level of the burners at legal limits, they are monitored with thermostats and CO2 detectors. “The sensors are important for the system to precisely monitor the CO2 level. If the system detects that the level has exceeded the threshold, then the HAI by Leviton system shuts them down.”
Before the HAI by Leviton system, Rofner had developed a Linux-based software application that displays in a graphic format the temperature inside and outside the greenhouses and the resulting growth rate of the plants at the nursery. Rofner used this graphical representation of the data to assist in managing the nursery’s expenses and wished to continue to use the data from this application, but wanted to port the data over to the new system.
The open architecture of the HAI by Leviton system allowed the continued use of Rofner’s program. Levetsovitis was able to integrate the graphical program into the system so that the growth data could be used in controlling the nursery’s life-sustaining functions. “With other systems, you would have to buy an expensive module to do that,” says Rofner. “Other systems are proprietary. HAI by Leviton gives me enough control so I could do what I need to do.”
The HAI by Leviton system has reduced the electrical and natural gas expenses for the business. The Richmond Nursery’s electrical expense was halved per month to $3,000 (CAD), and the natural gas expense was reduced to $2,500 (CAD) per month. These monthly energy savings equate to yearly savings of $36,000 for electricity and $18,000 for natural gas.
In addition, Rofner receives detailed data on the operation of the nursery. As conditions, seasons, and plant species change, the system will automatically adjust and optimize the nursery’s systems for water, ventilation, heat and CO2. “We’ve made huge strides over what we used to have,” Rofner says. “It’s easier for us to program supplemental lighting, giving us control we didn’t have before. Overall, the installation of the system has worked for us.” http://ecmweb.com/lighting-amp-control/ontario-plant-nursery-saves-energy-use-and-costs-life-support-system
Esa Tamsi Ltd installs Netled LED luminaires
AYSTO, Finland, December 19, 2012: Esa Tamsi Ltd installed Netled´s LED-luminaires for 500m2 area of salad production this autumn. ”We have followed with great interest the pilots of LED-luminaires in greenhouses and the field studies. We are convinced that LEDs represent the most important new technology that will improve the profitability of Finnish greenhouse companies and contribute to the survival of Finnish greenhouse production in the future. Energy is the most significant cost in our production. With LED-lighting we can reduce our energy consumption and improve the profitability of our business. We decided to choose Netled´s luminaires, because of the best energy efficiency and their minimum day light shading effect,” said Esa Tamsi, owner of Esa Tamsi Ltd.
”We have been working closely together with growers in our product development. We have listened to the experiences of the led light use in greenhouses and pursued to solve the problems in our own product development. LED chips have now developed, what comes to efficacy and prices, to the level, where LED-luminaires are genuinely profitable to invest in professional greenhouse production. Esa Tamsi´s investment is a remarkable opening of the usage of new technology in Finnish greenhouse sector,” said Niko Kivioja, managing director of Netled Ltd.
Tamsi greenhouse group consists of 4 companies: Esa Tamsi Ltd, Matti Tamsi Ltd, Tamsin Vihannes Ltd and Tamsin Tarhat Ltd. Tamsi group produces salads, dill and parsnip over 10 million pieces annually on 3,2 hectare greenhouse area. The group is one of the largest salad production companies in Finnish market.
Netled Ltd´s product range consists of applications for interlighting (tomato, cucumber, bell pepper), top lighting (salads, herbs, flowers) and growth chambers lighting (breeding, micropropagation, research). Netled´s product range enables energy efficient lighting solutions for large areas. Now Netled offers luminaires for homegrowers, too. The first consumer product was brought into domestic market in November.
Micron to launch the new Varidome S5 sprayer at LAMMA 2013
BROMYARD, UK, December 12, 2012: Micron Group will use its stand 156 (Hall 1A) at Lamma 2013 as a launch pad for its largest to date Varidome S5 band sprayer. Building on the success of Varidome S1 and S3 models, Varidome S5 is a 9 metre wide inter-row sprayer which has been specifically designed for use in crops planted with an 8 metre drill. Aimed at the broad acre farmer, Varidome S5 is a highly useful tool for controlling persistent weeds such as blackgrass in OSR, sugar beet, maize and many other row-grown crops. The product is applied to the inter-row through hydraulic pressure nozzles which are housed under oval domes for drift free spraying. This results in a highly targeted and accurate application and significant savings in chemical compared to blanket spraying.
Capable of spraying of up to 9 metres a pass, Varidome S5 offers high productivity and is capable of treating up to 150 acres a day. The machine can be fitted with up 24 shielded heads to suit the crop row spacing. Spray width is easily adjustable on each individual head (ranging from 100mm to 800mm) enabling operators to treat desired inter-row and wheeling widths.
Additionally, Varidome S5 can be supplied with two spray lines for inter-row weed control and over the row application to crop with the different tank mixes being fed from Micron’s Dual Tank System. This means users can treat the inter-row with a contact weed spray under the shield and simultaneously apply a selective spray over-row, thus halving operator time in the field.
When not in use, Varidome S5’s centre section folds up to allow the two side sections to fold in underneath for compact transportation and storage.
As well as the new Varidome, Micron will be displaying its shielded CDA sprayers – specifically, Undavina, Spraydome, Spraymiser models - and the new Micron 100 litre Tank System for treating field margins and general weed control. Micron’s shielded CDA range offers minimised spray drift, excellent spray accuracy and increased productivity.
Furthermore, visitors to the Micron Group stand will also be able to see its WeedSwiper, a non-drip weed wiper for the control of weeds in horticultural crops, pasture, amenity and conservation areas. WeedSwiper delivers herbicide onto the weeds via direct contact with its herbicide-moistened pads and is ideal in situations where conventional spraying is not desirable.
Varidome S5 being prepared for trials in OSR for autumn weed control.
Certhon, WPS Horti Systems launch new multi-layer growing concept
DE LIER, the Netherlands, October 18, 2012: Certhon and WPS Horti Systems have teamed up to develop new multi-layer growing systems. At the forthcoming Horti Fair (booth 11.0405) the companies will present a climate cell container for multi-layer growing. Growing plants in a multi-level growing cell is a key issue and promising development to grow plants uniformly, fasty and with a high space utilization. The most efficient set-up to use this technology depends on the crop and layout per situation. In order to facilitate the user in making the right choices, Certhon and WPS Horti Systems have developed the Climate Cell Container.
With this set-up the user can experiments to optimize the growing process and quality of the plant. The obtained knowledge can be used to determine the best growing conditions and growing cell layout for the specified crop.
To demonstrate the working of Multi-layer Growing Cell, Certhon and WPS Horti Systems present a Climate Cell Container at the Horti Fair. The container can be placed everywhere as long there are electricity- and water facilities. With the Climate Cell Container all for the growth relevant factors can be influenced such as temperature, humidity, Co2, watering and LED lighting. The user can set these parameters by himself and monitor what the effect is on his product. Naturally Certhon and WPS Horti Systems advice and facilitate during these experiments. The outcome will be the fundament for the final technical design of the Multi-layer Grow System and the corresponding business case .
Certhon and WPS Horti Systems work together in the development of Multilayer Growing Cells. WPS Horti Systems as expert in logistic and system integration and Certhon as climate- and lighting specialist for Horticulture. In 2011 Certhon already introduced the first operational Multi-layer Grow System for production at Deliscious in Beesel.
Flier launches Popper PM31
BARENDRECHT, the Netherlands, October 18, 2012: Flier, a leading producer of grading machines, has launched the Popper PM31 which removes non- and badly germinated young plants out of trays. The Popper PM31 is suited for the greenhouse production of flowers and vegetables and ensures a uniform production while saving space, time and money. The Popper can simply be moved towards the trays and can be adjusted for a different tray size within minutes. Its accuracy is amazing, by using high res camera images. The machine has a capacity of 600 trays per hour and is equipped with a touch screen control panel. The quality requirements for each sort of plant can be adjusted and saved.
For its development, Flier teamed up with Eindhoven-based Aris which provided the latest IT solutions such as tray scanning under LED lights and two digital colour cameras allowing for images with high resolution and colour fastness. On base of these images, the machine decides whether young plants are removed or not.
All information proceeding from the review is shown on the touch screen and saved. (Such as the number of blown-out cells per tray, per lot, per hour.) The lot information is saved separately and can be joined to your e-mail account or centrally saved by the network.
In order to fill the emptied tray cells again with good plants, a combination with the Tray Fixer of Flier Systems is possible. The Tray Fixer has a capacity of 11.000 plants per hour in this combined formation and according to Flier, the Popper PM31 has a return of investment of one season.
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