US: Grow-Tech licensing partnerships solution for medium and larger growers

Back in the 80's, Dole Foods was looking for a solution to optimize their lettuce seedling production in California. Their search for stabilized growing media for large scale automated transplanting, resulted in a partnership with a company that provided them with a technology that initially was patented and developed for NASA. Nowadays, the company that provided Dole's growing media, goes by the name Grow-Tech LLC. "Our stabilized growing media technology has been adopted for forestry, horticulture, floriculture and hydroponics", said James Chittum, Director of Business Development at Grow-Tech.

Grow-Tech’s stabilized media or FlexiPlugs, as they call them, are used by growers in the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia to start seed and root cuttings. According to Chittum, the company has an established market in the United States, but the company is doing its best to convince growers abroad of the advantages of their media. "In the States we have a long history and many growers are familiar with our plugs that distinguish themselves thanks to their user friendly format and the fact that they are 90-95% organic substrate. Also a lot of growers are attracted to the materials' flexibility, which allows us to make the many plug shapes and sizes that are available for a wide variety of crops."

"We have a proprietary hydrophilic binder that we manufacture", said Chittum. "This is one of the properties that allow us to modify the product for the grower. The composition of the Flexi plugs provides better water retention, air porosity and less mess on the bench. What this means for growers is faster turnaround times and a more stable plug for transplanting. For every kind of crop we are able to make configurations that offer an advantage for the grower."

Technology License Partnerships

Grow-Tech manufactures their FlexiPlugs and Flexi trays with machines that have been specially designed for them by European machine-builders. The machines allow them to produce the high-quality growing media. The machine pre-fills any standard US or European size trays as well as custom sizes. The increasing demand for their growing media coming from medium to large scale greenhouse operations has led to the introduction of strategic partnerships and licensing their technology allowing growers to have their own FlexiPlug machine in their greenhouse. Chittum: "Larger growers can now run their own stabilized media machinery in their facility. In this way a lot of money and time can be saved. This idea is well received and we now have partners in the US, Europe and South-America”.

For more information:
Grow-Tech, LLC
Jamie Chittum
165 Pleasant Avenue, Unit B
South Portland, Maine 04106
jchittum@grow-tech.com
F + 1 207-353-5005
www.grow-tech.com