Last Saturday, 80 Taiwanese growers from the Changhua and Nantou county attended the seminar “Substrates and Irrigation” organised by Touchmax Co. Ltd. at the Changhua Tianwei Horticulture Production Cooperative. The purpose of this meeting was to highlight the importance of the substrate as well as the differences in irrigation strategy when switching from one type of substrate to another. In combination with a good irrigation system and the Ellepot developed by Ellegaard, this will help the growers to achieve maximum yields under limited land resources in Taiwan.
The event was started by with Woodear Wang (Priva International Beijing Ltd.) presenting the Priva water management system for cultivation in soilless growing systems at different investment levels. This gave a general idea of how to fully ultilize resources in a closed system.
Expert in coco substrates, Jan De Smet (Forteco BV, van der Knaap group of companies) focused on the characteristics of coco growbags for subtropical climates and the optimum use of the growbags in warm humid conditions. These characteristics are very different from the peat moss that the growers have been using for many years. Also the fertilization needs to be modified when using coco growbags instead of peat moss.
Finally Brian Schmidt (Ellepot, Ellegaard) showed the importance of the air circulation and drainage in the root system when using Ellepots (substrate paper pots) in relation with the propagation. Here he pointed out the positive differences in spatial distribution of the roots after transplanting direct in the field or on top of the growbag. These are the ultimate details that can make a difference when growers want to bring their production to a higher level.
After the seminar, the greenhouse of Mr. Benson Kuo was visited and a production of Ellepots with the Ellegaard paper pot machine was demonstrated.
In the future, the EPP concept (Ellepot, Profit growbag and Priva irrigation control) will be tested at several locations in the counties.
For more information :
Corby Fu : corby_fu@touchmax.com.tw
Jan De Smet : jandesmet@vanderknaap.info
Woodear Z. Wang : woodear.wang@priva-asia.com
Brian Schmidt : bds@ellepot.dk