More and more large scale operations are taking over a big part of the young plant business. They are able to produce large volumes for low prices. "It is very hard for small growers like us to survive nowadays," said Florian Veit, who took over his fathers business a few years ago. "That is why we have to be very inventive and creative. We can't just simply follow cheap prices, and have to distinguish ourselves with our professionalism in special niche crops that can't be grown on a big automated scale."
The first things growers are thinking about during hard times, is reducing their cost price. "Unfortunately that is not always the best option" said Veit. "For a big operation it is a good option, but for our 6,000 square meters that's very hard. Therefore we have thought about other options to save on our cost price, which has led to us taking over some shares in an Indonesian stock company, which gives us the advantage of reducing our cost for rootless cuttings. This is one thing that gives us some space to stay on the market with an important crop, but we really have to force ourselves to propagate crops that can compete, serve niche markets and find alternatives. We also started up a separate new company, a 3500 m2 operation called "Plantelite" which produces niche products like orchids, Vanda, Oncidium, Cattleya etc. It's also a long term investment, but we like to split up the risk and to step into high value products for the premium market.”
One of the challenges for Veit Franz is gaining a high quality and keeping the square meters occupied. "That is one of the other advantages of being small scale", Veit said. "We have to win the game with good quality and keep our greenhouse occupied. Therefore our strategy is to make the right selection of crops that we propagate and make sure that our greenhouse is full all year round."
For four years now, the greenhouses of Veit Franz have used wood pellet heating installations. "We are very happy that we invested in this technique just in time," Veit stated. "This investment enables us to cultivate crops that depend on high temperatures. Again this is something that helps us to distinguish ourselves, as others are focussing more on using less heat and growing crops that do not need high temperatures. Asides from that we are still very economical, using the double inner screening installations and double outer screening installations since it is very warm over here in the summer months. Therefore we also use a fogging installation that allows us to reduce temperatures by 6 degrees Celsius."
To gain a high quality and prevent the smallest amount of risks, Veit also started to use an Aqua-Hort water treatment unit to fertilize the irrigation water with ionized copper. "When we visited some growers in Denmark, we saw all of these weird and funny looking machines in their irrigation rooms," he said. "After they told us that they used them to add copper to their irrigation water it caught our interest immediately. Of course we knew that copper is good for any crop, but the part of the ionization was looking like a miracle. We couldn't believe our ears when hearing the stories that the Danish growers told us. They simply sounded like a fairy tale, but eventually they convinced us to install a machine on our own nursery so we could see for ourselves what it could do. We were impressed by the first results, the quality of our roots increased significantly and especially for the cuttings, it was easier to get whiter roots. Aside of that we also were able to reduce the use of fungicide treatments against pytium and phytoptora. Another advantage was a cleaner greenhouse, because Aqua-Hort reduced algae, which also helps to fight sciaridea. All of this saved a lot of time and money."
Nowadays, Florian Veit is spreading the word of the Aqua-Hort treatment to other growers. "All of the growers should be aware of the advantages of this system," he said. "I am not saying that it will save your business, but it definitely can help you obtain a healthy and good crop. And this eventually will be the company's backbone that plays a big role in making it or breaking it."
For more information:
Veit Franz
Florian Veit
Jungpflanzen - giovani piante
Kaiserau 58 Il Bivio
39100 Bozen - Bolzano
Tel: 0039-0471-633445
Fax: 0039-0471-633637
[email protected]
www.veit-franz.com
www.aqua-hort.dk
