Live From Cultivate: What We’ve Seen So Far

By Brian D. Sparks|July 17, 2022

This week our team at Greenhouse Grower is making the trade show and education rounds at Cultivate’22. If you’re reading this on Monday morning, we are roughly halfway through the event and have had great conversations with growers, researchers, and suppliers from across the industry. And there’s much more to come, including our Medal of Excellence event that takes place tonight (find more information here, and if it’s not too late, please join us in Union Station Ballroom B of the Columbus Convention Center!)

One of my biggest takeaways from the show so far was a focus on how labor shortages have most growers looking at automation, as well as employee retention, as potential solutions. On Saturday, Amy Fulcher of the University of Tennessee, shared details on a cross-collaborative research project that involved interviewing a unique group of growers, during the height of the pandemic, on the benefits of automation. The project also involved a broader national survey.

Among the highlights from the survey:

Half of the respondents said hiring was difficult due to not just shortages of applicants, but in the quality of applicants as well
When addressing solutions, several respondents mentioned the potential of the H-2A program
When asked about actions owners can take to address labor shortages, the most popular response (66%) was to pay more, and an additional 56% mentioned adopting labor-saving technology
Within the nursery industry, the jobs with the most potential for automation included potting and automated pruning

Fulcher’s closing thoughts addressed the topic of succession planning, and how it ties into automation.

“If you are retiring, you need to look at how these investments can demonstrate that you’ve put your company in a position to move forward,” Fulcher said.