Grodan and Fluence Collaborate on Advanced Year-Round Strawberry Cultivation Project, Conducting Trial at Wageningen University & Research in Bleiswijk, The Netherlands.
Key horticultural providers, Grodan and Fluence, collaborate on a breakthrough trial, combining stone wool growing media and advanced LED technology for year-round, high-tech strawberry cultivation. The trial aims to redefine cultivation practices for ever bearing strawberries, assessing growth, yield, and quality.
Enhancing high-tech strawberry agriculture provides numerous advantages for both growers and consumers. Grodan and Fluence, experts in growing media and LED horticulture lighting, are partnering to investigate the potential of indoor strawberry cultivation. Their mission is to offer growers and customers with fresh, high-quality strawberries all year.
“We are excited to partner with Fluence in this ground-breaking initiative. By leveraging our combined strengths in horticulture, we aim to uncover new methods that empower growers to grow high-quality strawberries more efficiently and sustainably. We are working on optimizing our irrigation management advice and creating structured user advice that will help growers to have a stable and continuous high-quality production,” stated Thomas Peters, Business Development manager at Grodan.
Wageningen University & Research researchers began investigating the impact of EC management on the Favori everbearer strawberry cultivar’s growth, production, and quality in August. The alliance intends to transform irrigation procedures by leveraging Grodan’s GroSens sensors. Fresh tip plants were propagated in stone wool at varied EC levels (2, 3, and 4 mS/cm) utilizing a targeted ebb flood system. The study will determine the effect of young plant quality on final yield.
“Working on a new and disruptive way of growing everbearing strawberries under LED lighting in collaboration with the leading substrate supplier in horticulture is a great opportunity for us. Using LED lighting is a perfect energy-saving solution for year-round crops and fits very well with a greenhouse strawberry crop in stone wool. Fluence has gathered years of knowledge and experience on strawberry research and we are excited to leverage those learnings in this trial,” said Leo Lansbergen, a member of the Fluence Horticulture Service Team in EMEA.
The grow-out trial will evaluate different agronomic treatments, including lighting, irrigation, and climate control approaches, to establish optimal growing conditions and output. The knowledge obtained will be shared with growers and industry stakeholders through organized events in 2023 and 2024.
