Growing again

Regular visitors to this site may well have wondered what we are doing in the glasshouse after all of the work to clear the previous crop.

Work certainly did proceed and we replanted the glasshouse in the 2nd week of July with Capsicums, Tomatoes, and trial row of Aubergines. Our plants all came from Trandos Hydroponic Growers in W.A. and are now becoming well established in their new home.

Capsicums and Aubergines

Our varieties for this growing season are all Rijk Zwaan varieties, and we will be integrating the production side of our activities with the "Love my Salad" project that the Chisholm hospitality students are involved in. Further details are available at http://www.lovemysalad.com/

Our Tomato crop is also establishing well, and we are trying to keep a more generative level of growing within the crop.

Tomato Endeavour

The down time in the glasshouse also allowed us to complete the installation of the high definition camera system in the Tomato house for the e Glasshouse project. This now allows us to gain a remote view of the glasshouse, as well as being able to rotate the camera 360 degrees. 

Our window on the world!

The camera itself can also be programmed to take a picture at a specific time and in a specific place, so this will be a great advantage in our crop registration process.

General image from the camera

Zoom in on an individual plant from the camera

 



Continuing to clean up..................

This week has seen us making a start on clearing out our Tomato and Capsicum crops in preparation for the 2011 / 2012 crop. However, although our glasshouse is small by some standards, we have still had to move a large amount of green waste and groslabs. This equates to around 45 cubic metres of green waste and 450 Groslabs.

All of this material has to be moved from the glasshouse and deposited in bins and on pallets. This then allows us to move on to the next stage of cleaning which will see us washing down the interior of the glasshouse, flushing and cleaning all the irrigation systems, and the 1001 other maintenance tasks that we have to perform. And if you think we are putting in some hard work, spare a thought for those commercial growers who are doing the same thing across several hectares of production area.

 Our Tomato house, cleared and ready for a major spring clean

Our Capsicum house - looking like it has suffered a Locust plague!

Once the glasshouse is 'sterile' again we will be ready to plant our new crops. In order to maintain our bio security standards, there will be strict control on who enters the glasshouse to maintain a high level of control on the general hygiene standards.

 Groslabs awaiting processing for recycling in the composting trial

Out with the old, in with the new..................

Although our first crops weren't planted until mid October, we are now preparing to pull these out in preparation for replanting in July. The crops were always going to be something of a trial - and try us they did! - but we are now looking to replant in July to fit in with a more traditional industry based planting time. This will also mean that the crops will more closely align with the student timetables in terms of the structured full time training courses that we offer. So what are we replanting with? We will be replanting Compartment 2 with Truss and Cocktail Tomatoes, and Compartment 1 with Capsicums and a small trial of Aubergines. Our plants are currently being propagated by specialist growers Trandos, and we are using seed from our industry partner Rijk Zwaan. In the next few weeks we will be updating the blog with details of all the varieties that we will be using. Our green waste will be taken to a green waste facility, whilst our Groslabs are going to be used as  trial in conjunction with Grodan which will be looking at the composting of the growing medium. This project is also being driven by one of our Outbound Mobility project students, and details can be found on the link on the right of this site.

How are we going so far?

The past few months have seen both the staff members and the students at Chisholm Institute having a fairly steep learning curve in all aspects of the glasshouse management.

Our ability to not only grow crops to a reasonable standard as well as managing the climatic conditions that give optimum growth have greatly improved in the past 7 months. Whilst our first crop was always going to be something of a trial, we have ended up with some quite reasonable results.

Our initial crop was late in being planted (mid October) but we have decided to take this crop out at the end of this month with the aim to being fully replanted by the first week of July. This not only allows us to align ourselves with a more traditional crop production timetable, but also gives us a better alignment with the student timetable.

Whilst the crops are important to the facility, the driving force is the need for industry training. The teaching area is now well set up with student workstations that each have Priva Office on each computer, and a central Starboard that can not only show real time data from the Priva Integro, but will soon be able to be linked to a web cam that is being installed as part of our eGlasshouse project.


We are also planning to bring one of Privas leading climate advisers to Australia in August. Hein Jasperse will be hosting some specialised seminars on climate control and we will update you all on when this event will be taking place.

Endeavour Outbound Mobility Project commences

Last week saw us hold our information night for Chisholm Horticulture students who want to be considered for the Endeavour Outbound Mobility Project. This is a scholarship scheme where the lucky recipients will be able to travel to the Netherlands at the end of July to spend two weeks looking at technology in both controlled environment horticulture and water treatment and use.


Although there are only 6 places available, the competition is high with 40 prospective candidates attending the session. 


To secure a position, each applicant will have to firstly submit a formal application outlining their experience and qualities, along with a fund raising plan to raise $1000 towards the project. 


The applicants also have to identify an industry partnership project that they will work on before they depart, as well as sourcing information to assist the project overseas, before returning to Australia to implement the project with their industry partner.


"The links with industry for the partnership project is providing both the students and industry with a great opportunity to further their business skills and develop methodologies to develop production and efficiency"' said Horticulture Manager, Peter Curson.


We are looking forward to reviewing the applications in the immediate future," said Peter.


Applications for the students close on the 15th of April, and shortlisted applicants will be interviewed immediately after this date to allow for the identification of the 6 scholarship winners within the week.


The students will be looking at a number of industry sites as well as undertaking formal training with both training providers PTC+ and Priva.

Priva's Head office and training centre

As part of their program the students will also be keeping a daily Blog of their activities so it will be possible to track their experiences as the project proceeds.

Irrigating with rainwater - it's not all about free water

With the wettest summer on record has come the benefit of plenty of free water. Chisholm's glasshouse roof provides the perfect mechanism for harvesting rain water which is piped in to our storage tanks. With a storage capacity of some 200,000 litres of water, we were certainly surprised to have seen our tanks at full capacity a couple of times this summer!

But although the water is plentiful at the moment, it has some inherent problems. The pH value of the rainwater is around 6.2, but we have found that once we add our A and B solutions of fertiliser, the pH changes to a value of 4.2. This is not good for plant growth and can cause root damage.

The reason for this is that the rainwater has no 'buffering' capacity. In basic terms it is too soft. To counter this we are now injecting Potassium Bicarbonate in to the irrigation water through the Powerplants Nutrimix Fertigation system.

Powerplants Nutrimix Fertigator

The Nutrimix links directly in to our Priva Integro system which is now allowing us to have a finite amount of control on the irrigation water content. This now means that after treatment our water is being supplied to the plants at a more acceptable pH value of 5.6

But just supplying water is only half the story. We are also monitoring our gro slab moisture content, pH and EC rates, as well as recycling the irrigation water and sterilising it as well. But more on that side of our system in a future blog entry!

Priva Training the Trainers

The past week has seen us hosting training for Priva systems on a number of levels. Priva Engineer Koos Wijsman joined us from the Netherlands to deliver training to Priva Dealers from Australia and New Zealand. This training was focussed on the new Priva Connext systems and the installation and networking of the same. This training allowed the dealers to not only learn about the systems but also to exchange ideas and thoughts with their colleagues. (Details of Priva Connext can be found at the the following link:-  Priva Connext )

Pictured above are the representatives form the dealers who attended the training. 

This included from left to right:- 
Ian Williams, AgCon, NZ, Alastair McLean, Powerplants, Aus. Koos Wijsman, Priva, Nl. Jeroen van Loon, Powerplants, Aus. Jan de Kok, Horticom, Aus.  

Front row - Martin Schotte, Commercial Glasshouses, Aus. and Bill Bright, Powerplants, Aus.

Koos also spent time with Chisholm Trainers Tony Bundock and Peter Boyd to assist them in heightening their ability to deliver training with a 'live' system in the Chisholm Glasshouse. 

Chisholm Trainers Peter Boyd, Tony Bundock and Priva's Koos Wijsman

"Having an industry training partner in Priva allows us a great opportunity to not only further develop our own staff's skills but to facilitate high end industry training" said Horticulture Manager, Peter Curson. 


Chisholm will shortly be advertising the commencement of its. "Introduction to Climate Control" course which will give participants a basic overview in to the issues surrounding climate control as well as  allowing students to gain practical experience in the use of a Priva Integro system. 


Details of this course will be published in the next few weeks on this blog.

E Learning Project

In 2010 Chisholm Institute was successful in securing funding to develop a E learning system to compliment the Controlled Environment Horticulture Glasshouse.

The project is being funded by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework and conducted under the guidance of  eWorks, who are a leading exponent of e-learning solutions and technology training. eWorks are continually reviewing products and services to develop solutions that match the pace of change in industry and technology.

The project will see the introduction of "webcams" in to the glasshouse to facilitate on line vision of the crops, and a direct link to the Priva Integro climate management system.

We have developed a further blog site that will track the progress of this project, which will ultimately allow individuals to see exactly what is happening within the glasshouse. The link to this site is located on this blog site and will be updated as the project progresses.

This project is an exciting development in both the educational and technology areas, and will enhance Chisholm's capacity to deliver courses to a wider student cohort.

 

Vanessa's Viewpoint

Certificate IV Production Horticulture student, Vanessa Caldarera has been assisting us with general crop work across the holiday period. This experience has been of mutual benefit to both Chisholm and Vanessa.

"I have really enjoyed the chance to undertake some practically based work experience whilst enhancing my knowledge base" said Vanessa. "Not only have I learnt more about crop production, and the associated issues, but I have also learnt a great deal about the operation of the PrivAssist labour tracking system and the Priva Integro,".

Vanessa's time as a part time employee for Chisholm will end soon as she returns to full time studies next week.

"Having the ability to give current students a positive and paid work based experience is a great positive for both us and the students" said Department Manager Peter Curson. 

                                                                 Vanessa Caldarera