The Agropark high tech green house cluster in Querétaro, Mexico, is a good sample of adaptive high tech greenhouse technique. With an impressive number of greenhouse realized over the past years, and with more operations to come, the area is one of the hot spots regarding new greenhouse projects in North America. Previously you could find an interview on HortiDaily.com with Mexican grower Jacques Jajati from the 6 hectare Sunny Fields greenhouses at the Agropark. At thus moment, Sunny Fields in is in the middle of realizing another greenhouse that borders to their existing location. Just like the first one, the new greenhouse will be build by Filclair, a French greenhouse builder that is involved in adaptive high tech greenhouses all over the world. This week, Filclair and Sunny Fields signed the contract for the realisation of the new project.
For the last 50 years, Filclair has been incorporating new technologies into their plastic greenhouses. Based out of France, they export throughout the world, and one of the trends they've seen more often has been growers asking for high-tech greenhouses.
“The implementation of high-end greenhouses is a trend we're seeing around the world,” said Filclair's Nicolas Hernalsteen. “When we just started, we first installed one in France to test the structure and installation, and now we've installed them in Turkey, Mexico, Chile and the Dominican Republic.” The rise of the high-tech structure is something which suits Filclair very well, noted Hernalsteen, because that's Filclair's core competency. While they sell a wider range of greenhouses in their native France, most of the projects they undertake abroad incorporate the latest technology.
“Growers want better quality, but they want consistency more than quality,” said Hernalsteen. He explained that technology that's middle of the road might approximate the same yields as that of high-tech greenhouses, but the percentage of the crop that will be acceptable for export won't be as high. For operations in which lots of money will be invested, getting a consistent supply of exportable volumes is key to making the operation successful. For that reason, Hernalsteen said that about 70 percent of the projects they work on are high-tech.
"Compared to low tech, high tech means an average of 2.8 more production, so less surface is needed. That also means that the operations is much easier to manage, less cost of maintenance, and there is less area lost. Less workers is also easier to manage: in a high tech greenhouse 1 person produces 80 ton/year, in low tech you need 5 persons to produce 80 ton/year (2.8 in middle tech).
Next to that, in a High tech greenhouse you will have the same quantity and quality of production during the entire season, so much during the winter times (when the prices are high), more produce is suitable for export than with a low tech greenhouse. Thats why we advice growers to invest in high tech, the return rate of investment and profitableness are much better!"
"To keep up in this competitive industry, we always invested in research and development, and we are well-situated to take advantage of the high-tech greenhouse trend. We really make it a point to continually invest in new technologies and maintain a clear focus of what we should do."
For more information:
Filclair
Nicolas Hernalsteen
nicolas.hernalsteen@filclair.com
http://www.filclair.com