Landgard has presented the 2023 Landgard Awards in the categories 'Member Farm of the Year, ' 'Young Talent Award,' 'Innovation Award,' and 'Sustainability Award'. This year's winners are Volker and Dominik Janssen (Member Company of the Year), Michelle Pfeifer (Young Talent Award), Leo Berghs-Trienekens (Innovation Award), and Georg Hanka (Sustainability Award). "Committed and imaginative farms are the basis of our producer cooperative and the green sector as a whole. They represent the past, the present, and, above all, the future of horticulture, and we, as a cooperative, can only ever be as strong as our member farms are. Therefore, I am all the more pleased that we are honoring four of our farms with the Landgard Award and, not least, thanking them for their performance and innovative strength," says Landgard CEO Oliver Mans.
The presentation of the Landgard Awards marked the highlight of the evening event at an overarching committee meeting in Grünberg, Hesse. The laudators* at the awards ceremony were Dr. Svea Pacyna-Schürheck (Managing Director Landgard Obst & Gemüse GmbH & Co. KG), Stefan Rütten (Managing Director Landgard West Obst & Gemüse GmbH), Johannes Kronenberg (Managing Director Landgard Blumen & Pflanzen GmbH) and Stefan Grett-Winkel (Managing Director Landgard Fachhandel GmbH & Co. KG). The presentation of the Landgard Awards has already taken place in part in the run-up to the committee meeting in the enterprises of the winners*innen. Bert Schmitz, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Landgard eG, as well as other committee members from the Flowers & Plants and Fruit & Vegetables divisions, also attended the presentation of the Landgard Awards and congratulated the winners.
Member company of the year: Edelrot GmbH - strawberries from the Lower Rhine region
In the category "Member Company of the Year," a company is honored for its long-standing commitment to the Landgard producer cooperative and the industry, as well as for a consistent future- and customer-oriented focus.
All this applies to Edelrot GmbH in Viersen. The award was presented by Stefan Rütten, Managing Director of Landgard West Obst & Gemüse GmbH. The company is located in the Lower Rhine region, close to the Düsseldorf area and the Dutch border, and is managed in the third generation by Volker Janssen and his son Dominik. On 13 hectares of cultivation area, of which five hectares are under glass and heated, four hectares unheated foil greenhouse, and four hectares foil tunnel, strawberries are harvested continuously between April and December and marketed via Landgard. In addition, there are six hectares for the company's own young plant production. The production focuses on two varieties, Elsanta and Malling Centenary. In addition, new varieties are also tested time and again. In production, the Edelrot farm relies entirely on protected cultivation with covers over the fruit. This ensures optimum protection against weather influences such as wind, rain, and strong sunlight. In addition, the free-hanging plants grow in a gutter system at a height of 1.5 meters in 100 percent coconut husk substrate and without touching the ground.
Due to the global energy situation and future climate protection requirements, the plant relies on thermal energy from renewable resources. "For the main energy production, we use a biomass firing system fired by wood chips. In addition to the biomass firing plant, we generate heat with the help of a combined heat and power plant based on biomethane gas. In this way, we ensure emission-free energy generation," says Dominik Janssen. The heat generated is stored in a buffer tank with a capacity of one million liters of heating water and called up as needed. Additional heating energy is generated with a coal-fired heating system.
Due to the significant increase in production costs as a result of price increases in areas such as minimum wages, substrates, fertilizers, energy, and fuel, investments are currently also being examined more closely at Edelrot GmbH in terms of their economic viability. For this reason, the focus is currently on more favorable film systems, such as cultivation in tunnels without a rack and production in the ground. "Remontant varieties are also on the rise overall. Their advantages are lower costs and less effort and material input for one-time planting," explains Volker Janssen.
This year's award winners are Dominik Janssen of Edelrot GmbH, Leo Berghs-Trienekens, and Franz Hanka.
Innovation Award: Leo Berghs-Trienekens
The Landgard Award in the category "Innovation Award" recognizes a company that stands out for innovative products, services, business models, or technologies for the green industry.
The award jury chose Leo Berghs-Trienekens, owner of Leo Berghs-Trienekens Gemüsebau in Straelen. He produces lettuce on his farm using what is known as hydroponic cultivation. The term hydroponics is derived from the Greek words "hydro" for water and "ponos" for work. In horticulture, hydroponics stands for a method of raising and cultivating ornamental and useful plants without soil or substrate in a water system using beneficial insects and reduced, needs-based fertilization. In this process, the roots of the plants are suspended in a nutrient solution consisting of water and nutrients dissolved in it.
For hydroponic lettuce cultivation, Leo Berghs-Trienekens uses a greenhouse that previously grew mostly tomatoes. However, due to increased energy prices, he decided to stop heating the greenhouse last year. The last batch of sun-ripened tomatoes was harvested, and the greenhouse was subsequently emptied. Here, Leo Berghs-Trienekens now grows leafy vegetables and lettuce hydroponically. Thus, lettuce now grows at Berghs-Trienekens not only outdoors but also in the greenhouse on floating plates.
The lettuce plants floating on the plastic plates always take up exactly the nutrients they need at the moment via the roots hanging in the water. According to Leo Berghs-Trienekens, a particularly important advantage of hydroponic cultivation is sustainability. "Because of the closed system and minimal evaporation, we can save water, and there is no leaching of fertilizer. As a result, we also have no nitrate pollution. In addition, providing nutrients directly to the plants instead of the soil foraging for nutrients that is common in the field ensures optimized growth and very low pest infestation." Another advantage of hydroponic cultivation is the very efficient use of land. For example, the amount of lettuce the farm cultivates on the hydroponic area would require many times the space in the open field.
The Landgard growers' cooperative congratulates all of this year's Landgard Award winners.
For more information:
www.landgard.de
https://edelrot.eu/