Insider Insights on the Future of Automation in Horticulture

WPS, Rockwell FarmsAs Director of Business Development-North America for WPS (We Prove Solutions), Edwin Dijkshoorn works closely with growers across the controlled-environment industry. One of his main roles is to keep up with evolving trends in automation, the most critical pain points for growers, and how the two can come together.

In this exclusive interview with Greenhouse Grower Senior Editor Brian Sparks, Dijkshoorn shares a few of his insights.

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Brian Sparks: Looking at the big picture of greenhouse technology, what are the most significant innovations that you’ve seen over the past couple of years?

Edwin Dijkshoorn: Definitely more robotics, and that includes transplanters. What we have to see now in our industry is the realization that you actually have a plant factory, and the minute you describe it in such a way, then your mindset changes. When you look at a car factory or a computer chip factory, you don’t see that many people because all the labor that was involved in that was just cumbersome. The more we look at labor shortages, I think we are going to see changes with robotics being applied more to plants, which we already see in Europe. A robotic arm used to cost close to half a million dollars.

Now you can buy a used one for much less, and it should still function just as precisely as it did on day one. The minute we start realizing as an industry that robotics and hands-free growing is a real possibility, we can start to focus on the logistics and handling side of things.

Sparks: Do you see that hands-free approach being consistent across the greenhouse industry regardless of what type of crop you’re growing?

Dijkshoorn: I think it’s definitely possible. In ornamentals, you have a lot of different varieties. But let’s not shut our eyes to the possibility; let’s come up with solutions that are manageable. Vegetable greenhouses have made big leaps in the last decade towards hands-free growing. If you look at some of the lettuce systems out of Finland, they are phenomenal. Those are a bit more monocrop, but we see things happening in Holland where growers are implementing more robot arms, mainly for packaging. A lot of that work requires a lot of extra people. Most of the time in the ornamental industry, we focus on the logistics of getting these plants out of the greenhouse with manual labor. But there are systems in ornamentals that can save a tremendous amount of labor. We are working with one grower on a conveyor system to bring baskets to his hanging basket system.

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Another grower used to run 24 to 28 baskets per minute on a production line. With our belts in place he’s up to 50 now, and that’s only because his potting machine cannot go faster.

Sparks: Going back to your point about buying used equipment, we know price point is always a concern. Growers may see a new piece technology they like, but are not sure they can afford it. Is the used equipment market something that is viable in this market?

Dijkshoorn: In Holland, there is a vibrant used equipment market. I can name three companies that are constantly selling used equipment and it’s selling like crazy. For example, a grower may have bought a transplanter five years ago to cover 10 acres. If he’s now at 20 acres, that transplanter might not be fast enough for him, but it’s still a good transplanter. If he buys a new one, then you have a piece of equipment that is still perfectly suitable for another grower. That’s Holland, and here in the U.S., it is more difficult because of the transportation issues. And I think that’s what holds us up a little bit now, unless you have a piece of equipment that’s for sale fairly close by and one of your own trucks can pick it up. Nevertheless, I do feel this market will pick up more and more.

Sparks: Return on investment (ROI) is a big concern among growers today. How do you define return on investment for the growers you work with?

Dijkshoorn: We have an ROI whitepaper. The problem again is there are a variety of pot sizes, and when you automate so many parts, your ROI is sometimes multiplied quickly. Some of the more modern growers have good ERP systems that can pull the numbers. It can be difficult for other companies when you consider the vast amount of different varieties they grow. For us, we focus on pot size and shape, and if they if they can pull those numbers for us, that would help with an automation ROI calculation. The whitepaper isn’t available yet because we’re still in a testing phase with it. But on request we can work with the grower on this ROI

Sparks: As you’re communicating with the growers that you work with, what are some of the most common concerns or questions they have when it comes to technology in general?

Dijkshoorn: It’s maintenance. How can we do maintenance, how easy can we get spare parts, and can our people make the repairs? That’s the big concern, because now you have more complicated equipment than carts. If a machine breaks down, you need to fix it or your production stops. So that’s something that needs to be answered. And you see that with companies like AgriNomix and Bellpark that they anticipate this. It’s the service that is important to them, or the system needs to be simple enough that your in-house mechanic can fix it.

Sparks: What are some of the next big things you’re working on at your own company?

Dijkshoorn: Our focus here in the U.S. is on belting systems. We want to make sure that manual labor is being reduced in handling and packaging plants so if you market direct, you can quickly put orders together and have them ready to ship from a central location outside of the production greenhouse. With so many different varieties in the ornamental industry, that is difficult. But so what? We need to look at what we can do in a different way.

The other thing that we do as a company is phenotyping, which involves really drilling down into a plant with cameras and seeing what is happening with the plant. It’s all research focused, but we get a lot of our technology by investing in that market and applying it to regular horticulture. It’s kind of like Formula One racing: the technology they invent, after a couple years, you’ll probably find in your car. That’s how we approach this as well; you learn about new technology, and later when it’s more affordable, you bring it into the broader horticulture market. But you have to do it. As many growers have said, you automate or stagnate.

Sparks: There was an interesting panel discussion at last year’s Cultivate that was focused on automation for growers of any size, which echoes what you’re talking about.

Dijkshoorn: Yes, and I saw another panel discussion last year where people were not convinced that conveyor belts were the answer. I heard that and thought, they’re not getting the whole message. Because since Henry Ford, what is one thing you see in every factory? A conveyor belt We just need to look at it with a systems approach. The other thing that I hear is that we have too many different products to load onto the same conveyor. Companies like UPS are using them, and those guys have a much larger variety of sizes boxes than we have in pots. So to me, that is a non-issue. The question is, can we make a system cheap enough that growers can get a decent ROI on it? When I go back to my first remark about looking at the industry as a plant factory, then the leap to an automated system is much easier.

Learn more about WPS at their website.

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