Peter Geelen and Jan O. Voogt, together with Peter van Weel, were there at the very beginning of Het Nieuwe Telen (The New Cultivation). This year, a special edition of a magazine* celebrated fifteen years of the concept. Both Peters and Jan also laid the foundation for Plant Empowerment, the framework that underpins Het Nieuwe Telen. Plant Empowerment is the English term under which this philosophy has now gained recognition worldwide.
In 2022 the founders established the Plant Empowerment Academy. Their goal is to support the sustainable development of greenhouse horticulture by encouraging the open exchange of knowledge through an objective and independent growing concept.
On the Plant Empowerment Academy website, the founders look back on how the concept came to be. Their story reaches back to 2004, which they describe as the start of "the sustainability transition in Dutch horticulture." That year, the first fully closed greenhouse in the Netherlands was built.
"Surprisingly, the plants in this closed greenhouse behaved quite differently from what existing theories and experience in conventional open greenhouses had led us to expect," they recall. "For example, the crop's transpiration rate, which depends on solar radiation and humidity, did not match the standard evaporation models. Higher greenhouse temperatures sometimes even produced better results than lower temperatures, which went against the prevailing assumptions."
New insights through a combination of physics and plant physiology
These unexpected observations prompted a new research project into plant behavior in relation to greenhouse climate. Peter van Weel, then working at Wageningen University and Research, and Jan, working at Hoogendoorn Growth Management, carried out the study.
"We discovered that several long-standing theories about plant behavior and climate control were partly incorrect and even contradicted basic principles of physics and plant physiology. Step by step, together with researcher Peter Geelen, we developed a new growing concept grounded in physiological and physical laws. This eventually led to a paper titled Climate control based on stomatal behavior in a semi-closed greenhouse system 'Aircokas', published by the ISHS in 2008."
© Plant Empowerment AcademyPeter van Weel, Peter Geelen, and Jan O. Voogt, the founders and authors of the cultivation concept Plant Empowerment, in action with illustrator Jan Seelen for the visualizations of the first book Plant Empowerment the basic principles, in November 2017.
The Plant Empowerment Academy
Other key milestones in the development of the concept include 2009, when the Het Nieuwe Telen innovation program began, 2015, when Peter Geelen, Jan O. Voogt and Peter van Weel published the book 'De basisprincipes van Het Nieuwe Telen', and 2016. In 2016, the authors of the 2015 book chose the new name 'Plant Empowerment' to better express that the concept starts from the natural behaviour and inherent growth potential of plants.
In 2018 an English-language book followed, 'Plant Empowerment, the basic principles'. The book was later translated into Dutch and Spanish. Today, the Plant Empowerment Academy manages the publication of all books.
The founders of Plant Empowerment advocate for close, open collaboration among all parties involved, including research and training institutes, propagators and growers, investors, suppliers, crop consultants, technical specialists, governments and other organisations. They stress that this kind of intensive cooperation is essential for success. Plant Empowerment, they note, offers the fastest route toward a sustainable and profitable global greenhouse industry. They refer readers to the Mission page on the Plant Empowerment Academy website for more details.
To maintain the independence of the Plant Empowerment Academy, the founders state that they cannot enter into commercial relationships. The Plant Empowerment Academy and the Plant Empowerment Foundation are different organisations.
The Plant Empowerment Academy is, however, open to welcoming ambassadors who wish to contribute to their shared mission. Companies, institutes, propagators, and organisations interested in joining the Academy as Ambassadors are invited to contact the founders through the Ambassadors page.
Plant Empowerment Digital Growing
In recent years there has been growing interest in data-driven growing, supported by modern computational tools such as artificial intelligence. According to the founders, the Plant Empowerment concept is exceptionally well suited for this, since it is grounded in plant physiology and physical principles. At the same time, the sector increasingly feels the need for a unified monitoring protocol that can be used in both research and practice.
With the initiative and support of Kas als Energiebron, the authors published an additional guide at the end of 2023 titled Plant Empowerment Digitaal Telen. This guide describes a structured method of crop monitoring, including the use of corresponding sensors and plant observations. It also explains the digital tools needed for practical implementation, such as dashboards. This uniform and standardised approach improves collaboration between different parties and makes it easier to exchange and compare results from both research and practice. It also enables a significant acceleration of the learning curve and the overall sustainability transition.
*https://www.kasalsenergiebron.nl/content/kasalsenergiebron/docs/HNT/Magazine_15_jaar_HNT.pdf (link to Dutch magazine)
For more information:
Plant Empowerment Academy
[email protected]
www.plantempowerment.academy
