The Greenhouse Grower Magazine Articles

Enjoy a sneak peak of articles from past issues of The Greenhouse Grower Magazine. Subscribe now to view more articles from past and new issues.

Less distinction between polytunnels and glasshouses

The use of polytunnels in commercial horticulture has expanded greatly over the last ten years or so, particularly as growers of field crops such as soft fruit and salads have embraced them, both as a way of extending the season but also of protecting high value crops from the unpredictability of the British weather. At...

May 31, 2017

Adaptive Control for LED Lights Can Reduce Costs of Supplemental Lighting

Research in Greece has been developing more efficient control methods for supplemental lighting, taking advantage of the dimmability of light-emitting diode (LED) grow lights (HortScience). The work compared 14 hours per day of full power supplemental LED lighting and turning the LEDs on, at full power, only when the ambient photosynthetic photon flux (PPF) dropped...

Apr 30, 2017

BPOA Conference

Robotics was a major theme at the annual spring conference of the British Protected Ornamentals Association. Coupled with this very modern topic, five speakers dealt with aspects of pest and disease control, an issue that goes back to the dawn of agriculture. Twelve speakers altogether took part in the one-day programme. Three were from the...

Mar 31, 2017

GCA making progress but needs to improve awareness

The Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA) is delivering real benefits for direct suppliers to UK supermarkets, but there is still more to do and a need to increase awareness of both the GCA and the Groceries Supply Code of Practice (CSCoP). These were two of the key messages from GCA Christine Tacon at the third GCA...

Feb 28, 2017

Adding value for the grower

As growers will know, the collapse in the value of the pound following last June’s EU referendum pushed up the price of imported goods and many of the raw materials needed to make horticultural pots and trays. However, key UK-based suppliers have been making a concerted effort to minimise the impact of these changes –...

Feb 28, 2017

A first for Finland

LAUNCHED at last summer’s GreenTech horticultural show, in Amsterdam, the Finnish-conceived vertical farming concept is the result of joint development work between Finnish firms Netled and Novarbo. Called the Vertical Farming Concept (VFC), Netled’s role was to develop the water-cooled LEDs that can be combined with a heat recovery system to transfer the heat to...

Jan 31, 2017