With a passion for horticulture, the Californian grower Pacific Plug & Liner produces strong and unique varieties. As a part of a horticultural heritage that dates back over a century, Pacific Plug & Liner provides the highest standard of annuals, perennials, grasses, succulent and tropical plants.
Since 2017, Pacific Plug & Liner uses the innovative plug Growcoon as the main part of its propagation system. General Manager Marlon Carrera says: “We have been seeing Growcoon helping to reduce crop times by 1 or 2 weeks in some crops. After two weeks you can start pulling the crops out of the tray and are able to inspect if the roots are growing. Growcoon holds the substrate together very well and therefore you are able to inspect the roots at a very early stage. With other products, this won’t be possible without breaking the structure of the root ball. Since it is easy to pull the Growcoons out of the tray my crew does have an easier and faster way to remove bad liners and replace them with healthy ones.”
The Growcoon enables growers to supply crops faster, ensure more uniform growth, limit wastage, and make the production process more efficient. In addition to the compact bundling of the root ball, the Growcoon creates a 100% natural environment for root development. In contrast to alternative products, nothing stands in the way of the growth of the root ball. To make work in the nursery even smoother, Pacific Plug & Liner has started to use the Growcoon Automatic Dispenser which makes it possible to work faster and more cost-efficiently. By the automatic process, the Growcoons are unstacked and placed in the tray. In each cycle, the dispenser places a full row of Growcoons across the width of the tray. The capacity is between 10,000 and 50,000 Growcoons per hour, depending on the number of holes of the tray.
“Growcoon is helping us to reduce labor costs”, says Marlon Carrera. “Using the Growcoon Automatic Dispenser was the right decision to avoid placing Growcoons by hand and accelerate our processes of filling trays with Growcoon and soil almost at the same time.”
The 100 % bio-degradable Growcoon is an innovation of Maan Biobased Products under distribution by Klasmann-Deilmann Group.
For more information:
Klasmann-Deilmann
www.klasmann-deilmann.com