Prominent's members regularly coordinate their sites

Growers association Prominent is now working with LetsGrow in their second season.
The 22 tomato growers who are members of the association make data from their climate computers available to each other via this innovative online system. They can see what the climate at all the different sites is at any moment of the day.

Claus van der Voort from Gravenzande has a look at what is happening in the greenhouses of five colleagues at Prominent growing the same variety - the slightly early vine tomato  ‘Mecano’ - every morning. When regulating the climate for the day ahead, he often also takes into account the other companies' settings.  “If in doubt, for instance, about screens, it's good to know what your colleagues do. We are able to refine our regulation, which benefits yields.”

Better insight into 24 hour temperature of colleagues 

Claus van der Voort grows tomatoes together with his brothers Jan and Hans on 9.5 hectares. The last five years were dedicated to expansion, construction and modernisation for the Westland growers.This lead to the Gravenzande site being quite up-to-date. Most of the greenhouses of this site are now six metres high, so there is room for screens and lighting. To provide energy efficiently, two CHPs of three MegaWatt each were recently taken into operation. The Van der Voort brothers have a Hoogendoorn climarte computer and have been working with the LetsGrow registration system for a number years to their fullest satisfaction now. The LetsGrow Live expansion was an addition very welcome to the tomato growers.

Claus van der Voort says about the excursino group: “We usually have an excursion every five weeks. Our discussions have progressed enormously as far as contents and depth are concerned since we have started using LetsGrow Live. We used to discuss 24 hour temperatures in the past, too, but realistically that didn't mean very much. You can  achieve a 24 hour temperature of 17 degrees in a variety of ways - one may have 12 degrees during the previous night and 27 degrees at noon, while  another has 15 degrees the previous night and 21 degrees at noon. The result over 24 hours concerns the temperature sum realised itself, but for a plant, it is very important just how you have achieved your 24 hour temperature. We study these differences, and it teaches us a lot."

Super system
Prominent's members grow different varieties and have different climate computers. Thanks to their link to LetsGrow Live, they can compare their crops better. Van der Voort: "We used to work with Excel sheets, but numbers alone don't mean much. We can  give each other much better feedback now that we have lines in a graph. It doesn't matter how data are created, values are now comparable regardless of the make of climate computer.”
It has become habit now for the tomato grower to start the day by having a look at the computer for two years now. “I know there are growers who don't participate that much, but I really think this is a super system. You can see your colleagues' crop lines and can adjust your strategy if someone else is doing better. This way, we raise our crops towards a higher level together.”