UK: First harvest at Flavourfresh Salads Lansdale

The harvest has started earlier than expected at Flavourfresh Salads Lansdale nursery in Southport thanks to the investment of a Philips LED lighting installation supplied by LS Systems Ltd and their partners in the Netherlands Agrolux Europe BV.

The supply and installation of the project for Flavourfresh was project managed by Sales Director at LS Systems Darren McDonald who had a 2 week window in crop turnaround before the new plants arrived, this was in conjunction with a new energy and blackout screening system, as well as side wall and gable end roller screens.

Darren was full of praise for the supply of the lighting from Agrolux and in particular Nico van der Houwen and Dario Pobric who worked closely with LS Systems to make sure all the Philips lighting arrived on time. Installation of the system was a collaboration between LS Systems, Hortifix lighting installations who installed the lighting units and LS Systems electrical contractor Eco Electrical whose team run by Andrew Chapman built all the control panels and wired up the lighting.

Both contractors worked to a tight time schedule to get the work done on time and also benefited from the assistance given to them by Flavourfresh Lansdale nursery manager Andy Liggatt and his staff.


Andy Roe, production manager at Flavour Fresh

The full LED lighting installation comprised of 966 top lights and 2166 inter lights each giving a light output of 110 umol/s1 over the 46 rows of tomato plants, allowing the grower to plant the first week in October with a projected fruit harvest date of the middle of December, the tomato variety grown previously was grown under natural light only with a December planting.

Andy Roe production manager at Flavourfresh salads said, “the dawning of the LED era is without doubt the greatest innovation in horticulture since the invention of the tractor, Philips lighting has developed horticultural LED light to unlock the science of plant physiology and passed on this technical wizardry to benefit growers and food consumers.” He added, "the total LED installation gives 100% control to us as a grower."

"The lighting and heating work hand in hand to reduce the need for ventilation and in turn this reduces the total energy requirement by up to 35% which is a win, win situation for the environment, based on initial results we are confident of an earlier picking date than predicted and more achievable yields."

"Darren has once again delivered a project on time and within budget constraints to Flavourfresh Salads and we expect the results at the end of the season to prove this investment is required further within the nursery.”

If you would like to take a look, contact darren.mcdonald@lssystems.co.uk to arrange a visit.

For more information:
Flavourfresh Salads
Lansdale Nursery
Jacksmere Lane
Scarisbrick
L40 9RT.
Tel. 01704 880132

Agrolux Nederland B.V.
Honderdland 175
2676 LT Maasdijk
Netherlands
Tel. +31 174 610820
Fax. +31 174 610812
Mob. +31 6 22947598
www.agrolux.com

LS Systems
184 Blackgate Lane
Tarleton
Preston PR4 6UU
01772 812484
www.lssystems.co.uk