Our 10 Most Read Articles of 2016
1. Supercell, severe weather destroys 100 hectares of Dutch glasshouses
Auch, the supercell thunderstorm that destroyed at least 100 hectares of greenhouses in the South of Holland was the most read story in 2016. The total damage was estimated to be millions of euro's. Most of the companies were forced to stop their crop.
2. IKEA joins the hydroponic hype
In April 2016, IKEA introduced an indoor gardening system that lets consumers grow their own lettuce and herbs on water. Developed in collaboration with agricultural scientists in Sweden, the Krydda/Växer series includes everything needed to start sprouting a garden and keeping it growing.
3. California start-up becomes incubator of new hort technology
Horticulture news in the U.S. in 2016 was, again, all about marijuana. And more companies than ever are joing the cannabis boom. We interviewd a group of four California entrepreneurs that founded Elite Garden. After being individually responsible for the success of several startup ventures, they teamed up to take advantage of the opportunities within the upcoming legal cannabis industry in order to push innovation and technology forward.
4. Startups leading the U.S. farming revolution
While large settled greenhouse growers are often suffering from fierce competition of imports, a younger generation of farmers is leading the revolution of the local food movement. At the Indoor Ag-Con, we had a chance to sit down with one of these young entrepreneurs, Nate Storey from Bright Agrotech's Upstart Farmers; an innovative group of young food producers that seeks to improve agriculture with sustainable, efficient production techniques.
5. Finally the deleafing robot is here
The announcement of Priva's Kompano Deleafing robot almost made our servers go down. Have a look at the video in which you can see their award winning deleafing robot used in practice. The video gives a good impression of the accuracy and speed of the first commercially available model, the Kompano.
6. Canada: Dutch strawberry growers make headway in Kingsville
In August 2016, the first strawberry plants were planted in the new greenhouse of Boem Berry Farms in Kingsville, Ontario. The new company is the result of a partnership between Canadian grower and marketeer Mucci Farms and Dutch growers Ton Bastiaansen and Joost van Oers.
7. "It's not about owning a greenhouse or vertical farm, it's about creating positive change"
Also the article we made with Chris Higgins of Hort Americas is among our most read stories of 2016. "Seven years ago, locally grown produce was not nearly as important as it is today. At that time our largest customers were mainly growers of flowers and plants. As locally grown food became more important to both consumers and producers, we gladly welcomed a new-type of customer focused on growing leafy greens and culinary herbs at a very rapid pace."
8. Husband and wife supervising some of America's largest greenhouse projects
2016 was a very busy year for Joost and Julie Vijverberg of G&V Construction. The group was completing a large project in Ohio, established a new division and introduced a new builders app.
9. Egypt explores opportunities to develop 40,000 hectare of protected crops
On Wednesday morning August 10, the Egyptian Minister of Agriculture Essam Osman Fayed arrived at Schiphol airport for a three day visit to explore the Dutch horticulture and agriculture industry. The Egyptian government has plans to give their domestic economy a boost with the realization of 40,000 hectares of protected crops and they have chosen the Netherlands as counterpart to initiate the development.
One of the recent projects is a pilot project in Egypt, built by Bosman van Zaal. The greenhouse area is about 1.5 ha consisting of glasshouse and plastic house with a technical service area in between.
10. US: Only one worker on a hectare of hydroponic lettuce at Tanimura & Antle
In a Tennessee greenhouse of 1 hectare, the hydroponic lettuce growers at Tanimura & Antle are using the Dry Hydroponics system from Holland. The layout for this system claims to be so efficient, that if they scaled up the production to an acreage of 5 hectares, still only two employees would be needed inside the greenhouse to handle the production.