Five orchid growers look at each others data

The climate computers of six proactive orchid sites have now been linked via LetsGrow for two years. Their climate computers are by different supplies: Priva, HortiMax and Hoogendoorn. LetsGrow makes it possible to put all climate data from their five sites into one graph.
Ruud Moor of Sion Orchids in De Lier was involved in the link-up right from the start. He is very happy with the innovative system: "We used to work with Excel sheets and send them to each other. That was quite laborious, but now everything is automatic, and we have a much better overview. Discussions amongst ourselves and the site managers have reached quite a higher level since. Our sites have gained efficiency.”

More depth in excursion groups

Ruud Moor works as a crop manager for Sion Orchids, one of the most proactive orchid producers at the moment. Their state-of-the art site uses a large number of innovative technologies for their crop, such as heat storage and dimmable lighting. As far as automation is concerned, this site is always in the lead. On their main site in De Lier, they are growing on 30.000 meters in energy-efficient greenhouses made from double plastic panels.
The crop manager leads an excursion group which also includes colleagues from the OptiFlor, Van Geest, Piko Plant, Ter Laak Orchideeën and Van der Hoorn orchid growers. He says: “Growing orchids is very complex, and sites are always very different. It is therefore quite difficult to do proper comparisons. The new LetsGrow system makes is easier to follow what is happening in a colleague's greenhouse. We meet every two weeks, and thanks to LetsGrow, we are much better informed during excursions now. It is therefore much easier to interpret what you see in the colleague's greenhouse. For instance, what are the consequences of a certain temperature setting for the task in hand?”

User-friendly
The climate computers of all these sites were provided by different suppliers. Sion has always worked with a Priva computer. Data are automatically translated into the LetsGrow system. Even with updates to the climate computer, translation is still done automatically. Ruud Moor: “It always works very clearly. The input screens and graphs show the data of all sites in the same layout.”
For every site, there is a link to the nursery, the cooling, young plants 1 and young plants 2. Data are processed centrally in a database and are presented to every company in the same way, no matter if they have a Priva, a Hoogendoorn or a HortiMax process computer. “We can always produce graphs for data which we would like to compare at a certain moment ourselves. You don't notice that these data have been collated in different ways. LetsGrow is very user-friendly,” says Sion's crop manager. He adds: “A nice feature of the system is also that with one push of a button, we can send a mail to every member of the group. For instance, we have a  ‘black list’  of varieties - if any variety is rejected by one of the sites, you can inform the whole group about this.”