The Inside Scoop of What Keeps Agri-Starts Growing
October 7, 2020 
Principals at Agri-Starts Ty Strode (right) and Johnny Hoblick stand proudly among one of the nursery operation’s greenhouses in Apopka, FL.
Photo by Frank Giles
When Randy Strode and (partner at the time) Gerry Abner bought a property off Kelly Park Road in Apopka, FL, in 1984, it marked the humble beginnings of Agri-Starts, Inc. The little trailer lab and Quonset hoop houses only totaled about 6,500 square feet. But since that time, through continued diversification and innovation, the nursery is now home to 210,000 square feet of greenhouses — and in need of more space. Ty Strode, the President of Agri-Starts, took over day-to-day management of operations from his father at the beginning of this year. He says the company has purchased another 5 acres adjacent to the Kelly Park property, and another headhouse, and a 30,000 square-foot greenhouse is planned for that space.
“Our expansion model has been 30,000 square feet at a time,” says Ty Strode. “In our 72-cell plant packs, this allows us to grow one million plants a turn in that space.”
When the company was established, it grew only pre-finished, indoor foliage, serving the Florida market. The company saw its first big expansion about 20 years ago when it started working with national brokers reaching northern states and the spring market.
Adding Edibles
Strode says the expansion worked well. But by the third year, things at the nursery began to get out of balance. “We would be hitting it hard for three or four months then slow down,” he says. “We had these gaps we needed to fill to keep our labor force steady. That is where food crops came in and served us well.”
The nursery added blueberries in 2006, followed by blackberries a few years later. Other niche food crops are grown on the farm as well. The nursery sells the berries both to other nurseries and directly to farmers. The business took off and has become an important market.
New Lab to Support Growth
Agri-Starts was an early pioneer in the use of tissue culture to produce starter plants. This year, the company completed construction of an additional state-of-the-art tissue culture lab on the property. The 18,000 square-foot facility has the capacity to produce 25 million plants annually when the space is fully utilized.
Strode says tissue culture provides several benefits when managed properly. Agri-Starts now has the ability to grow all year. Plants are more uniform and consistent (essentially a clone). Being in a juvenile state typically means faster growth for the starter plant, and plants typically are bushier as well. He adds the technology has evolved and improved over time.
“It all comes back to how you manage your mother stock,” he says. “Every lab has had their trials and tribulations as to how they manage their mothers. And it is different from crop to crop. We manage our foliage items much differently than we manage our hardwood crops. It is all about developing that internal knowledge, learning from trial and error, and making adjustments along the way.”
The new lab is not the only high-tech investment the nursery has made recently. For the past year, it has been working to customize an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software platform from Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly Dynamics NAV). Prior to that, they spent a year searching for the right partner and ERP vendor.
“Our business is so dynamic with different products, seasonalities, and customers,” Strode says. “Every one of those trays is important to us to get to our customers on time and in good quality. In order to do that with the 1,000-plus items we handle, we must automate some of these production planning and tracking processes. That’s what we hope to do with the new ERP platform. It is a big deal and a big investment in time and money.”
To continue reading, go to GrowingProduce.com.
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