Is it possible to improve the management of greenhouses when dealing with labor shortages? The answer comes from SIA Sicilia Group, which, in its acronym (Innovative Solutions in Agriculture), expresses the DNA of a company devoted to the rationalization and sustainability of production processes.
Tutor in its cardboard packaging
A concrete example of how to speed up greenhouse operations concerns plant tutoring, which, with the right tools, sees execution times reduced by as much as 50 percent. This is the Ideal Tutor system, patented by this Italian company and for years, highly appreciated by operators in the most modern and advanced professional greenhouse sector.
Tutor extraction
The traditional technique of supporting horticultural plants grown in greenhouses requires substantial resources in terms of workforce and considerable expenditure of time, with a significant impact on production costs. The solution devised by SIA Sicilia Group, on the other hand, avoids time-consuming activities in terms of execution time. Among other things, it is a system aimed at improving the working conditions of farmers who, with Ideal Tutor, no longer have to bend their backs or climb impromptu and often dangerous ladders and stools. In addition, the system saves time not only in plant tying operations during growth but also in post-crop management of the support apparatus, such as at the stage of its removal.
Above and below: quick laying of the tutor
The system consists of a structure made from polyethylene wires used for tying the most common crops: tomato, eggplant, bell pepper, etc. The system is very versatile and is assembled industrially, starting with nylon wire, and comes in a large assortment of solutions about the size of the wires, distances between vertical wires, compliance with planting distances, etc. Equally articulate is the assortment of hooks, simple or multiple, useful for top anchoring.
Anchoring
Ideal Tutor is supplied in packaged coils, where the total height and inter-distances between vertical wires are predetermined, allowing for all kinds of different solutions. Fixing the system is achieved by unwinding the coil and matching the crop rows. Top anchorage is achieved by means of hooks.
Positioning of the horizontal wire on the hook
In order to meet additional production needs in crops where plant growth is indeterminate, the new Ideal Dynamic Tutor system has been added to the system described so far. This is essentially the same construction system as the previous one but additionally equipped with a modular pallet system that allows, by means of small cuts to the Ideal Tutor structure, additional pallets to be carried out when the eave height of the crop is reached, so as to lower the crop by the desired height (30 to 60 cm per module). The operation can be carried out up to three times, having the possibility of lowering and, thus, continuing to grow the crop an additional 90 to 180 cm.
Now the descending wires are ready to tie the seedlings together
Thus, one obtains, within the same cultivation, the possibility to lengthen the vegetative-productive life of the crop and increase its productivity without incurring the long series of costs for replanting it.
Alessandro Avarino, the entrepreneur who patented the system
SIA Group collected the testimony of Vittorio Gona, sole director of Alba Bio, a leading company in organic vegetable production, which is shared here.
For more information:
Alessandro Avarino
SIA Sicilia Group
Via XXV Aprile, 42
97019 Vittoria - IT
+39 3345837641
siasiciliagroupsrl@gmail.com
www.siagroupsrl.it