Priva Greenhouse Tour

Dutch controls giant Priva took two busloads of vendors, distributors and other interested parties (myself included) on a bus trip around Holland today. The tour began at 8 AM, which was a shock for people finally getting used to the time change (and the 11 AM daily start for Horti Fair). I’ve heard that the show’s organizers pushed back the daily opening to 11 to allow attendees and exhibitors to skip the horrendous Amsterdam morning traffic. I've also heard that this change to a later starting time allows for more “networking opportunities” late into the Amsterdam night, hence the somewhat overtired crew this morning. 

Speaking of Time Changes...
Incidentally, the Horti Fair show is going to be moved back into early October next year for three reasons:

1) All Saints Day (November 1st) is a holiday in many parts of Holland;

2) A lot of greenhouse veg producers are in the middle of a crop turn and are therefore very busy right around Nov. 1; and

3) More of the buying decisions are made in September/October than the October/November time frame anyways.

So if you’re planning on going next year, make sure to plan accordingly for the earlier date, which is probably October 9-12 but don’t quote me on that (so says the journalist!)


Doug Versus Doug

Before the tour got underway, I was having breakfast with some growers and vendors and witnessed this humorous exchange between Doug Cole of D.S. Cole Growers and Doug Marlow of Priva, concerning the upfront investment for a labor tracking system like the  PrivAssist Smartline or Hoogendoorn Nomad:

Doug Cole: “So how much will one of these (labor registration) readers cost?”

Doug Marlow: “Well, you don’t buy them one at a time. If you have 80 employees…”

Doug Cole: “But how much for just one unit?”

Doug Marlow: “That doesn't matter, really. Think about it, you don’t start to buy a car by asking for the price of just one tire.”

Doug Cole: “You’re right, I don’t because I already know that, and besides, I buy four tires at a time!”

Doug Marlow then pointed out that often the more complex the equipment/system, the more elusive the cost/benefit ratio. However, having seen the system at work earlier in the week on one of the MSU tours, sophisticated handheld labor tracking systems like the PrivAssist appear to provide managers way to keep an eye on the greenhouse (without those pesky surveillance cameras, that is). Another interesting aspect that of PrivAssist that Marlow pointed is that, by incorporating symbols, they’ve made labor/manager communication language-independent. Everyone can recognize that a flashing cup of coffee icon means it's time for a coffeebreak, right? Wait, is that one I see now?

Ernst Olieman Roses, B.V.

This was a hi-tech, large-scale rose nursery in the Westland that has installed enough automation to cut its labor force in half, plus produce roses of higher quality and standardization. The most interesting interesting item from the tour was something that I took to calling the “Rosecoaster,” an automated transport system from harvest to shipping that looked like a rollercoaster for cut roses. At Olieman, the flowers are tracked by an RFID system all the way through the production process. Also, in the greenhouse, each bench has a quickcoupling-style connection for the irrigation system, and each moving bench is rotated back and forth around the bay. This not only saves valuable production space by eliminating walkways, but saves labor by bringing the benches to the harvesters at the end of production. It was very much like an assembly line for autoparts, except the end result was considerably more beautiful—a dozen long-stemmed, beautifully-packaged, auction-ready white roses.

Improvement Center
The Improvement Center is a for-profit commercial greenhouse research facility built by a Dutch horticultural consulting company called GreenQ. With 11 multi-functional, technologically advanced rental bays housed at one central location, GreenQ has carved out a potentially lucrative space as the middleman between research institutions such as the LEI Institute and Wageningen University on one hand, and the actual Dutch vegetable market on the other. In their business model, GreenQ owns the facility, the equipment and the crop (GreenQ even sells the tomatoes themselves!), and the renter gets a copy of the research data. Presently, renters include Priva (of course), Hortilux (performing a comparative lighting study) and some vegetable seed companies also wanting to conduct comparative trials. One research bay that wasn’t fully built yet is set to house a dual trial of aquaculture (growing fish) and  horticulture (growing tomatos); an interesting concept I heard about first from Luc Desroches from Hydronov in Canada, who gave the keynote address at University of Arizona’s Greenhouse Short Course about doing the same thing (mixing hort- and aquaculture) except with lettuce rafts. (www.hydronov.com)

Walking Plants System

J&P ten Have is a Dutch pot plant company that uses the “walking plant system” (WPS) to produce a crop of begonias and poinsettias. Because J&P’s system is a retrofit, a similar system I saw at Rijnplant last year was a lot cleaner and shinier, but regardless it’s still impressive to see the rows of plants in their tracking containers, marching along, up and down the rows, growing bigger as they travel from start of production to finish and finally to the shipping area.

In a typical North American greenhouse, a lot of the jobs eliminated by WPS (such as pot spacing, tray moving etc.) are done by cheap immigrant labor. In Holland, even imported labor is expensive enough at 18-20 Euro ($25 or so) per hour that the 50-60 euro cost per square meter for this system makes sense in terms of a manageable payback period. Also, because the plants are spaced and re-spaced by “intelligent design” throughout the growing process, the WPS rep assured the group that a potted plant grower using WPS can expect hardier, stronger plants and a forty percent increase in yield (which means, of course, forty percent more plants per energy input, which adds another positive factor to the ROI equation). I can tell from the bus discussions afterwards that the initial investment costs, while formidable, didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the group towards the concept (especially our Chinese friends on the tour).

What's The Opposite Of Vegetarian?
Lunch was, as most meals seem to be in Holland, a relatively vegetable-free experience. I wonder, where all these beautiful tomatoes and peppers they grow go to? Export only? I certainly didn't see many of them. Our Priva hosts took us to a restaurant club overlooking yet another “dual-use” concept—this time, a rainwater catchpond-turned-waterski-park. The pond wasn’t even big enough to drive a boat on, so the owners had built a system of high-speed cables and pulleys mounted on towers to pull the skiers around and around until they fell, at which point they had to swim to shore. Which wasn't far.

Actually, you’ve got to feel kind of sorry for anyone in Holland that’s into anything besides biking. Especially golfers. One thing you definitely don’t see in the Dutch Westland is driving ranges. With all those glasshouses around, you could probably cause quite a bit of damage with an errant slice or shank (incidentally, my two best shots).

Lans Goes Loud, Big
One of the final stops on the tour was the newest Lans facility, home of the longest (750 meters) and tallest (7 meters) single bay that I’ve ever seen, with a cogeneration engine that produces three megawatts of power, a whole lot of noise and necessitates about 15 different warning, caution and danger stickers on the engine room door.




























If you notice in the picture, the growers at Lans even use the interior wall space surrounding the shipping bays and engine room (seen at left) to string one extra line of tomato plants up.
In fact, all of the facilities from today’s tours had this “no wasted space” mantra. For instance, J&P has one thin (8 inches or so wide) tread that runs down the length of the bays every so often for growers to inspect the crops (and spot-apply PGRs to the poinsettias and begonias where necessary). Also, as noted earlier, rose grower Olieman has the movable benches that bring the harvest-ready plants right to the harvesters, thus eliminating the need for extra walking space. Space is at a premium in general in Holland, which is why (I’m told) they’re the leaders in economy of greenhouse production in the first place. I was also told more than a few times that the European market is looking at the U.S. vegetable greenhouse production market to grow explosively in the next few decades, especially since our growing need for food will inevitably conflict with our diminishing water resources. Whatever ends up happening, I have a distinct feeling that Horti Fair will continue to be the place to get a solid preview of changes to come in controlled-environment growing.

Hopefully, I’ve given you some information on when and how that might happen. If you were wondering about the Top 3 I mentioned, they are (in descending order): aquifer energy storage, "grab and go" packaging, and labor replacement strategies. I’d like to thank the sponsors of this coverage (Trueleaf Technologies, Dramm Corporation, Total Energy Group, Hoogendoorn Automation, PLJ Bom Greenhouses and Priva North America) for making the trip possible, and thank the Michigan State University and state of Michigan group for making it understandable and fun. Make sure you register for the regular Benchrunner sends using the subscribe button, and as always feel free to email me with any questions or comments at bpkenney@meistermedia.com. Hope to see you again next year!

Immigration Stories From American Growers

With the focus on labor (as always) in Holland, there was a lively dialogue among American growers on what has happened to them in the past, and what might happen in the future. I’ve kept the comments anonymous, as these are touchy times for such a touchy issue.

Growers are edgy:

“For a couple weeks, in our area, there were all sorts of stories going around (my facility) about INS agents about to come in and raid us. Meanwhile, the truth is there’s one company in a totally different city getting raided, but one day all my employees’ cellphones start ringing and when all of a sudden the UPS truck comes down the driveway, all my employees are running like hell through the hall. It took hours to get everything going again.”

Growers are frustrated:

“When they inspected me, all they’ve asked for is the I-9 forms, and then they looked them over and went away. I’m not God, I don’t know if it’s a fake ID or not. I don’t have time to be calling to check up on people.”

Growers are even impressed:

"With all the effort and ingenuity that goes into setting up these fake ID and undocumented immigrant support and money transfer networks, you wish you could get that kind of effort working for you instead of having to pretend the initiative isn’t there and do a bunch of checks on what look like perfectly good IDs to me. That's not my job!."

“There was a house that got raided by INS near us because there were always lines of Hispanics outside waiting to get in, so the neighbors thought it was a drug house. It turns out that it was a fake ID factory, where you went in the front door and all the way through the house and came out the back with fake papers. They weren’t selling drugs at all, they were selling access to a job, which is about the opposite.”

No matter what you think of our economic base or even our soldiers going overseas, no matter how depressing you find the negative campaigning, just think: on November 7 you have the chance to vote for a positive step forward on comprehensive immigration reform. Where does your Congressional delegation stand? Find out at our special immigration home page, www.greenhousegrower.com/immigration  and we’ll see you at the polls!

###################  By The Numbers ###################

A grower wrote in to ask for more information on the cutting sticker that I reported on last week. “You mentioned speed as an advantage, but according to my math it only sticks 1200 cuttings/hr,” he noted. “Are your numbers right?” Hard to say, because I don’t know the top number that Jentjens says can be stuck per hour by this machine (and I can't read the Dutch brochure!) but I can say that because they must be hand-loaded by us slow-moving humans, none of the machines at Horti Fair run at anywhere near their full capacity. More information on the cutting sticker can be gotten by emailing
jentjens-veghel@export.nl

   The Final Runaround
    A final set of pics and observations from the last day of the Horti Fair tradeshow...

Here are some boxes for waterplants, similar to the Van Krimpen bulb product that was up for an award at the show, that demonstrate just how far bulb packaging has come from the "sacks on a rack" marketing mentality. Sure, something as beautiful as a tulip or waterlily will sell itself, but why make it?










Another version of the "bulb in a can" packaging idea, this time more artistically decorated than a similar version you saw a few days ago (still available for viewing if you scroll down).












The image at left, as well as the images above, are from the Horti Fair "Growing Concepts" booth, where the Dutch floriculture industry gathers the best and brightest idea- and taste-makers and ideas into one multi-level display for Horti Fair attendees to digest. The display at left, from Thermoflor, describes the three trends that this forward-thinking Dutch greenhouse builder believes will define the coming decades of garden retailing. Each of these three archetypes appeals to different consumer bases for different reasons. Where does your garden center (or marketing package in general) fit into their framework? Can you stress any of these themes to draw that many more customers to shop with you instead of the competition? These were just a few of the questions that the Growing Concepts displays brought to mind.












As Frances Hopkins of Stepables is fond of saying, "If your marketing is good enough, you don't even need to speak the language to understand what it is you're buying." That was most definitely the case here, as the photo at the left demonstrates how symbols are able to communicate independently of language (and, in my opinion, in a much more visually appealing way) what the consumer needs to do to make the most of our products.











The Hoogendoorn Growlab Plantivity sensor acts like an MRI for your plants and can diagnose stress well before the human eye. Such a sensor also brings up the idea that measuring leaf temperature, rather than air temperature, gives a grower a more accurate idea of what is needed by the crop.












Yes, you guessed it--more bags, this time from the displays at the Growing Concepts gallery. The word was that many of these bags aren't sourced from traditional horticultural packaging firms, which helps with unit price.

Not only do these plant bags make great, colorful gifts but they also encourage impulse buys, something that the European floriculture retailing community does extremely well. A simple, colorful and inexpensive way to increase margins --could you ask for more?







Everyone needs sunglasses, right? Reminding a shopper of such a necessity by merchandizing plants with nontraditional accessories is marketing genius.

Some pretty, award-winning mums, part of the Hall of Flowers display. Walking through the scent-filled hall pictured below, I was truly amazed by the sensory overload and incredible visual spectacle (and truly grateful that I don't have bad allergies!)

And finally, a packaging idea that needs no introduction or words, which is good because this left me speechless...

What do you think? Are you going to start sourcing fur-wrapped pots? Or buying stock in bulb cans? Let me know at bpkenney@meistermedia.com and check back Monday for my final day of coverage.













(Editor's note: Here's an email below from a Benchrunner reader who just did a similar thing to the scary, hairy pot seen above for a Christmas photo shoot.)

Brad,

Thank you for the outstanding reports from the HortiFair. For those of us who cannot attend, reading about the trip and unique products is just a nice way to add value to one’s day.

I did have to chuckle about the fur covered vase. Weeks ago I covered 4” pots of Buxus ‘Morris Midget’ in silver fur for a holiday photo shoot. I thought it was a little out there, but fun.

Ellen Barredo, Bowood Farms

St. Louis, Mo

Thanks to Ellen for the kind compliments and fun photo...please feel free to do the same!

More Virtual Touring...on the Robocar!

Well, I promised I would try to max out my digital camera's memory card again today, and seem to have accomplished both that and killing the battery--I had to turn off the LED "preview screen" to save battery life and must admit that holding a camera up to my face and looking through the viewfinder window to take a picture felt very "20th century," especially among the tech-savvy Horti Fair attendees.

What you're seeing here is me hijacking the "robocar," one of many new products this year that involved automated shipping cart routing.  The Dutch auction houses both use some automated carts for handling the millions of flowers that pass through their systems every year.

Here's another piece of labor-saving technology that also saves money for materials. Yes, that's a big wad of glue, but hey--glue is cheap. Tags aren't.

This next machine was kind of hard to take a photo of, since it was a product involving an automated process, so I guess it was one of those "you kind of had to be there" situations. I can tell you, though, that every person in our crew was there at one time or another, and I had to wait about 30 seconds for the floor to clear out around it to snap this shot. I was there twice, because I was being stubborn and trying to get a good photo. Obviously, I didn't quite succeed...

The automated cutting sticker was picking up little toothpicks with flags on them and sticking them, one at a time, into trays at a rate of about one per three seconds. Obviously the advantage here is uniformity of depth, pressure etc. as well as speed, but it did seem that the toothpicks it was picking up so quickly might be a little less "crush-able" than an actual cutting, and that human fingers might be a little more gentle on a soft lobelia or bacopa cutting than a machine.  



This was a cool "plant stand" from Vertical Grower that might be a great item for the outdoor living trend. They even are developing one that telescopes out from the base (for a more compact product to ease shipping costs). Just think of them as the corollary to hanging baskets.


Here's a brand new Ellepot vacuum dibbler, inspired by Walters Gardens, under development and available soon from Blackmore.

Calandiva pots merchandized with a box of crayons and a coloring book-style pot cover well-designed to reach the "younger generation of gardeners" that everyone is always talking about...

And here we have the adult version, merchandized with a piece of chalk on a string for writing sweet nothings on the gift bag (as if orchids weren't already romantic enough?)

And finally, this is a display of cans at our hotel front desk that I originally thought were some brand of very expensive Dutch soda (or beer) until I realized that each can is actually just a cool packaging idea, with a single bulb in each can. In America, you'd have to put a disclaimer on the outside saying "Do not drink this bulb."

Dutch Grower Psychology

The Dutch research institute LEI publishes reports on all sorts of subjects, including a recent survey of Dutch growers' attitudes towards energy efficiency improvements. Below is a chart of greenhouse firms seperated by crops produced, with those less receptive to new investment in energy efficiency on the left and those most likely to invest on the right. Interesting results, from which you can draw your own conclusions. In doing so, however, remember that many of the growers surveyed were already quite energy efficient, and had already (as the Dutch put it) "harvested the low-hanging fruit" like thermal screens, improved glazings, high-efficiency boilers, etc.




Photorealism

I maxed out my photo card today--unfortunately, trying to snap photos and take notes simultaneously left quite a few discards in the bunch. Thanks to the wonders of digital technology, that didn't cost me a dime! The show is amazing, and I'll keep posting photos as I get them together, so keep checking back.

Like I said, it was bags, bags and more bags...

        

         

         

Javo's new pot robot, which has unlimited height clearance.

Javo's tray filler for pre-spaced pots, so

dirt can't fall between the pots (see different
trays behind the machine).



L: Control panel of Visser's PC-16 transplanter, capable of planting 36,000 plugs/hour.
R: Scary, hairy fur-lined pots, looking like fur-lined boots for winter, or a Halloween costume for your planter?












Colorful plastic pots were also much in evidence, many either copycats or distributed by the same supplier. These were two of the better-looking offerings, the ones on the left from E-Pla and the ones on the right from Van Krimpen B.V. It's 11:30 here and I'm off to bed, but I promise to max out my camera again tomorrow!



Greenports

The Westland has the majority of the 25,000 acres of greenhouse space currently in production in Holland. Through a program of incentives and new, planned growing areas (“greenports”) like Bergerden, the Dutch government is trying to get a lot of them to move to less populated areas. Jim Tunier comments, “There’s money and grants available in the US for that too, but they want to move you to undeveloped areas, and for us that means no available labor. There were millions of dollars available, but it didn’t make sense for us to do so we had to pass.” For the low-labor Dutch greenhouse environment, such a move just doesn't have the same restrictions, and many have already built or begun building new facilities in this new greenhouse frontier.

Alternative Energy In Holland

It turns out that we Americans aren’t the only ones highly suspicious of our oil company motives. “In Holland, biomass is one of the largest alternative energy sources, but only because the others are so small and undeveloped,” says Jos Verstegen, agricultural economics researcher at the LEI. “For instance, (Royal Dutch) Shell has the world’s largest factory building photovoltaic cells, but that’s only because they’ve taken over the many different smaller firms and inventors and companies directly, or by buying the best scientists who can write the best proposals and soaking up all the government subsidies.” It's really no wonder why, considering the massive fluctuations in global oil and gas prices, that the Dutch are scrambling to find ways to develop solar and wind power.

Perhaps it’s due to our continually passing wind turbines and windmills, but talk this morning centered around wind power. A lot of American growers have investigated this form of electricity generation as an option. In fact, Bob McKnight from Rakers is working with MSU to study the potential for wind power in their region, and just installed an anomemeter (wind-speed measurement device) on a 100-foot tower on Rakers property in Litchfield, Mich. Jerry and Jim Tuinier at Post Gardens have also investigated wind power, and are convinced that it’s a viable technology for reducing or removing grid demand.

According to Jim, the downsides that the Post team found were:

• The power company wanted a minimum capacity guarantee, which is hard to provide with wind power;
• In some states (like Michigan) with deregulated utility environments, the power companies aren’t obligated to pay a competitive market rate for the power you produce, which means that growers in such situations should only plan on generating enough power for their own use; and
• The greenhouse farms (like the Tuniers' Post Gardens) that have the money available to invest in something like a 9006 Rural Development matching grant often don’t qualify because they aren’t in areas that qualify as rural any longer. Ironically enough, this Catch-22 situation was brought about by the sale and redevelopment of farmland for housing! 
  

On a practical note, MSU’s Dean Krauskopf says to talk to your Congressional delegation to find out about your particular situation regarding rural development grants, as your U.S. Representative can be the most powerful advocate on these matters.

Got Data?

While we were on the subject of wind power, a couple people realized that they’ve got similar data to what Rakers is generating coming in from their environmental controls and weather stations. Steve Harsh said he’d be interested in seeing the hard data from growers in Michigan and Ohio, so if you’re interested and eligible, send your data to harsh@msu.edu in a spreadsheet or as a .cvs file. Please include notations explaining the data, such as your location, information about the height and manufacturer of the weather station, and you should assume that the data will be used in research purposes. Thanks!

The Energy Producing Greenhouse

Hydro Huisman was a very interesting operation. Situated in a new Dutch greenhouse growing area called Begerden specifically set up by the Dutch government to expand both production and research into greenhouse techniques, Hydro Huisman shares a cogeneration station with its neighbors that also produces CO2 for the entire area. As you might be able to tell from its name, the HH operation is based around “hydroculture." In HH's case, the company grows nursery crops and tropicals on typical flood floors, except there's a switch—instead of being dry most of the time and flooded occasionally for irrigation, at HH there is always a layer of water on the floor, and these high-dollar crops, many of which are imported in media from places like Costa Rica and even Florida, are "trained" to grow hydroponically in baked clay pebbles for sale to interiorscape clients.

Apart from this commercial venture, the staff at HH has been cooperating on a closed greenhouse concept with researchers holding a grant from the Dutch government. The “energy producing greenhouse” is built on the assumption that solar energy provides a sustainable energy source of 3.8 Gigajoules/yr. while a 6-acre range like HH needs only 1.6 Gj/yr., theoretically enabling the greenhouse to be part of an energy-producing grid. Interesting? Definitely. Feasible? Maybe.

Some New Products

This closed greenhouse concept uses two innovative elements that our Stateside crew hadn’t seen before. The first was a product called Fiwihex, which is a hot water-to-air heat exchanger featuring a series of 100 plates per unit with ultra fine woven wires (1.1 mm gauge) to serve as the heat transfer surface area (see photos below).

Obviously, with such ultrafine tubing, growers need to worry about keeping system water very, very clean. However, the growers were in general agreement that the huge increase in heat exchanger surface area with Fiwihex is a huge benefit for both heating and for cooling down a greenhouse, and expect to see more development in this product soon.

High Profile Zig Zag

The HH greenhouse also featured a new glazing product from GE called Zig Zag and featuring twin-walled sheets with a zig-zag pattern inside, supposedly increasing the amount of light transmission to 89 percent and featuring higher energy savings of 20-35 percent over single glass.

Both the commercial and research bays at Huisman were huge, with somewhere near 72 feet spans and at least 30 feet high at the ridges. The Zig Zag paneling, similar to other polycarbonate panels, gives the structure added strength, and besides, in their moderate climate the Dutch don’t have to worry about heavy snow loads, so they can go big with less worry. Such a huge profile ensures the energy-producing greenhouse researchers maximum light penetration, therefore allowing them to “harvest” even more sunlight and possibly allowing them to engineer a greenhouse that actually produces, rather than consumes, energy.

Well, Well

The "energy producing greenhouse" also uses what is becoming a commonplace Dutch method of storing solar energy through warm and cold water stored in aquifers under the greenhouse, described below:

HH drilled two wells 70 meters deep and 60 cm in diameter and dropped in perforated pipes to deposit the hot and cold water. These wells, located 250 meters apart, then become the energy storage aquifers, with one shrinking while the other expands as cold or hot water is needed, depending on the season. As far as size, the aquifers have to be four times the total area of the greenhouse space you’re trying to heat or cool. Fortunately for the Dutch, more than 90 percent of the surface of Holland is suitable for this type of storage. The hot well temperature averages 76 degrees and the cold well averages 46 degrees.

The engineers controlling the system would let the hot water get warmer than 76, so as to store more energy, but growth of algae and bacteria would block the well (and the thin wires in the heat transfer plates) which means that a heat pump (powered by fossil fuels, for now) is needed to warm the water up to usable greenhouse temperature. There have also been some startup problems, such as a big rock stuck in a well valve, but as many of you well know those kind of expensive, unforseen construction snafus aren’t restricted to Dutch growers.  

The Six Million Euro Man

Sion Orchids also uses the aquifer energy storage technique, but on a somewhat larger scale than the Hydro Huisman research project. Instead of 100 m3/hr. pump capacity, the Sion Orchids facility has 190 m3/hr. capacity for refilling the storage aquifers, and instead of two total wells, Sion has six wells on each side of the house. According to owner Eric Moor, access to the aquifers is on a "first come, first serve" basis, and if his neighbor drills down for an aquifer system, "I'll just have to build a bigger pump and win the race!"

Sion uses the double-decker production technique that’s seen at a couple of other facilities in Holland, where the cost of property makes such innovations a necessary part of competition. According to Eric (one of the four siblings who own the company) the total investment to build the water system is 800,000 Euros, of which the government pitched in 10 percent in grants. However, accepting the government grant money means that the system has to be “thermo-neutral” over the course of the year, which means that there are sophisticated meters on both sides of the system to measure the amount of hot and cold water used yearly and make sure it balances out.

With 30,000 square meters of space containing more than a million high-dollar plants in a high-density setting, I know that I’ve never seen this high of a dollar amount of anything in one building before. It was more like being in a bank than a greenhouse. When the owner said that there was 6.5 million Euros (nearly 9 million US dollars) of orchids spread out before us, our collective jaws dropped. The entire facility took an investment of 15 million Euros, and all this for a first crop that takes 70 weeks to mature to market? It's nearly unbelievable how much faith the Dutch banks will place in young entrepreneurs. Eric was a very cool guy and a gracious host, and seems like a pretty cool boss to have, as well (yes, that's the Sion Orchids bar/coffeebar in the background of our picture!)

I honestly am only through about half the great information that we received on the tours today so definitely check back tomorrow for more updates, plus our first day at the big show!

Why does Horti Fair matter?
It's been said before that Horti Fair is the trade show where other trade shows rent booth space. It may not be the world's largest, as the IPM Essen show has more total visitors (and both of these are surely destined to lose their supremacy as the trade shows in China gather steam in the next decade). However, no other trade show of its kind can boast of coming from the largest floriculture producing and exporting country in the world.

Consider the numbers:
More than 20 countries from Belgium to Kenya to Turkey have national booths at the show, and upwards of 50,000 visitors from more than 100 countries visit Horti Fair to view the wares displayed by exhibitors from about 30 countries. To put that in perspective, picture more than five Short Courses thrown together and you get an idea of why more than 20 Michigan growers and educators and I are here to investigate what this year's show has to offer. We all know that a lot of cutting-edge, efficiency-improving techniques and equipment come from Holland, and every year Horti Fair is the place where the most significant achievements are judged by a jury of peers. In short, shows like Horti Fair may matter in the same way that estate planning matters. Keep checking back in for new information during this week of special online, on-location coverage!

One for the Team
As many of you may well know, traveling ain't easy--I guess this is the modern equivalent of being blown off course in the days of sextants and sails. At least the sailors were never separated from their luggage!

Readers of my online, on-location coverage of Horti Fair 2005 will remember that at that show I had the good luck of landing at the same time as heads of state in town for a G-8 meeting (with the traffic snarls that such bad timing entails). Despite this, all of the headaches of on-location coverage of events like Horti Fair and Pack Trials are worth it to us if they are worth it to you. If you've got ideas or feedback, email: bpkenney@meistermedia.com

Speaking of growers with ideas...
I just got back from an Indonesian feast with Jim Tuinier of Post Gardens, as well as Erik Runkle, Tom Dudek, Matt Blanchard and Dean Krauskopf of Michigan State University (MSU). Talk ranged far and wide, from issues of RFID and border security to the recent generic prescription price PR wars being fought in the hearts, minds (and newspapers) of Americans by Wal-Mart and Target. The word from these guys is that Michigan-based retail grocer chain Meijer has upped (lowered?) the ante by now offering to give away FREE prescriptions of the most common antibiotics to children. Sounds like a commodity price war, which should sound all-too-familiar to floriculture growers around the country. Another metaphor to consider is how an incredible variety of 16 separate dishes filled up six travel-starved appetites, all for a really cheap price with some "shrink" still left on the table at the end of the meal...good thing for the cook it wasn't "eat-by-scan!"

Heard at the dinner table...
Dean Krauskopf: "How many times can we repackage a geranium and still sell it?"
Jim Tuinier: "Indefinitely. Look at the auto industry, they bring a new model out every year and people buy it!"
Me: "So now geranium sales are operating like car sales, under the principle of planned obsolescence?"
Jim: "Of course they are--they're perishable commodities!"
Dean: "But at a certain point, a geranium is a geranium is a geranium...no matter what you do with it!"

What do you think? How often and how many times can you repackage a commodity crop? Are floriculture retailers the new car salesmen? Will paint and glitter break out of the poinsettia season like some horrible new pathogen and infect entire ranges of commodity crops? I for one hope not, but still think that there's a lot that can be done with packaging, marketing and branding without straying into slimy tactics. Using more everyday language to describe what the plant does is one idea (as GG's Bob LaRue wrote about Homestead Growers recently, where they group plants according to these seven common-sense categories that even the least-educated shopper can understand: Native, fragrant, cut flower, ground cover, drought tolerant, winter interest and attracts hummingbirds/butterflies. Simple, and effective. The potential for using language to draw in younger consumers is there too--why not "Geranium: The Remix," or even "Geranium 2.0?"

Jim Tuinier on merchandizing: "We tried third-party merchandisers and it didn't work. Or, they didn't work. They would just stand around while plants were dying and would say to people ‘Oh, the blue things? They're over there.' Now we know that it makes much more sense to us to keep these people on our own payroll, so we can train them ourselves and keep costs down by managing the inventory and the payroll better. You learn different tricks every year, but then again that's what business is."

Dean Krauskopf on "Covering Your Assets"

Dean pointed out that it makes sense for companies to establish a separate merchandizing entity under the umbrella of the larger corporation, as there are liability issues as well as workmen's compensation and other business and legal issues associated with offsite workers. However, while it is generally acknowledged that such a practice is good business, it is even more generally acknowledged that if someone is determined to sue you, they will go after the deepest pockets they can no matter what steps you take to "cover your assets."

Did You Know That...

Over 70 percent of the Dutch economy lies below sea level? Perhaps this is why they are so willing to accept that fossil fuel usage leads to global warming, which in turn leads to higher sea levels, which...well, you can imagine the rest of the story. The huge greenhouse industry here uses more than 10 percent of all the fossil fuel energy, so the Dutch government has mandated a 60 percent reduction in usage (from 1990 levels) by 2010 and no new greenhouse construction using fossil fuels as an energy source by 2020. Tomorrow's tours take us to a solar-powered, fossil-fuel-free greenhouse, as well as a geothermally-heated greenhouse and a research dinner at a Dutch hort university where Dutch energy researchers will present findings on these issues. Check back in for more coverage from the front lines of global floriculture!

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