"Sustainable growing requires a sustainable substrate"

AIPH will tone down a panel session at GreenTech to talk over sustainable growing media solution and industriousness readiness . The sitting will take place on Thursday , June 13 , at 10 am at GreenTech RAI Amsterdam .

The control panel academic term will turn over into the topic of sustainable grow metier . It will research the manufacture ’s response to this topic , the challenge it pose , and the innovative solution being develop .

Gracie Barrett , Technical Manager ( Trials and New Product Development ) at the Farplants Group in the UK , will be one of the panel talker . She has spent her vocation focusing on the interactions between plants and substrates , particularly in the context of use of sustainable growing media . Her inquiry on peat - free substrates has emphasized the grandness of see the distinct properties of different component materials and the challenges of inconsistency and alimentary percolate .

The Farplants Group is one of the UK ’s largest sweeping ornamental industrial plant growers , create approximately 11 million container plants per year . The grouping has been trialing peat - free substratum for two decades and has build up experience in peat - free ontogeny . Since unite the mathematical group in 2017 , Ms Barrett has used hertechnical knowledgeto help the group transition to production - scale peat - free growing .

Ms Barrett says , from her own experience at the Farplants Group : " The substrates we apply are preponderantly wood - based , and a sensible dimension of our crop are now final pot into peat - devoid substrate . Most of our products will be potted peat - free by 2026 . More hard crops with longer production cycles ( like ericaceous subjects ) may take a niggling longer . I think that , overall , the UK industry has been working very severely to transition out from peat . The importation of young sparking plug plants from land where peat is still wide used in propagation materials stay a substantial roadblock for many UK growers in term of produce 100 per cent peat - free works . "

Mr Nedeljko Basic , Director of Portfolio Management at Kekkilä BVB , will also get together the venire . This Finnish party is lionise 100 age in develop media , in peculiar peat .

Another panelist will be Mr Van Nguyen , a peat specialist at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands , who will conceive the issues surrounding this subject , the sustainable originate media choice for the futurity , and how this will affect the futurity of yield .

The final panelist is Mr Henri Potze from Greenhouse Sustainability , a company seek to assist business measure and contend their environmental footprint .

Panel participants

• Mr Tim Briercliffe – Secretary General , AIPH ( panel chairperson )

• Ms Gracie Barrett – Technical Manager , Farplants Group

• Mr Nedeljko Basic – Director , Kekkilä BVB

• Mr Van Nguyen – Peat Specialist , Wageningen University & Research

• Mr Henri Potze – Owner and CEO of Greenhouse Sustainability

Mr Briercliffe comment , " The challenge of reducing the use of peat are well understood by growers . This panel will look into the solution being developed and will explore the real - life experience of growers crap this alteration . "

AIPH invites all those in the gardening supplying Ernst Boris Chain to discuss the path towards sustainable farm spiritualist at the panel session on the Vision Stage at GreenTech Amsterdam on Thursday , 13 June , from 10:15 am to 11 am .

For more data : AIPHwww.aiph.org