Continuing to grow...........

Whilst September the first is recognised as the start of Spring, and is generally seen as the start of the traditional growing season, our crops are already moving along well in their controlled environment despite the cooler weather outside. 

The tomato plants were transferred from sitting on top of the plastic of the groslabs, to being placed directly on to the pre wetted rockwool.

This obviously agreed with them as they extended their roots to become firmly attached to the rockwool within 2 days!

At the moment we are ensuring that we get good root development from the plants without allowing them to grow to vegetatively - this is a fine balance between growing too vegetatively and retaining a more generative growth pattern.

The first flower trusses are also now setting, and we will soon be taking side shoots from the existing plants to make additional heads for increased production.

                                                                    Tomato Levanzo

Accredited training via eGlasshouse

Our eGlasshouse online training system has taken a giant leap forward in that we can now offer Nationally accredited courses via an online learning system.

Students will now be able to enrol in a number of subjects that can be utilised to form a complete course, leading to a Certificate 3, Certificate 4, or Diploma in Production Horticulture.

Although the courses are offered in an online format, there is also an additional need to either attend practical training at the Chisholm Glasshouse, or have your skills recognised in a formal workplace. This is to ensure that individual skills are displayed in a work based setting, and the courses are not just theory based.

For a full list of the subjects that we are now offering, please look at the eGlasshouse or Training course link on this page, and we are developing more specific subjects for hydroponic growing.

If you are interested in this style of training or need more detail, please contact Tony Bundock at tony.bundock@chisholm.edu.au

Crop Registration

One of the great advantages of our glasshouse facility is that our students can have a 'hands on' experience in practical tasks that relate to crop growing. 

The area of 'Crop Registration' is a key area in tracking the progress of a crop so that a grower or consultant can make a judgement on the progress of a crop, and how it needs to be 'steered' in terms of making it more generative or vegetative.

Our students have been busy setting up individual crop registration sites so that they can hone their skills in crop registration, and their results will be sent off to our crop consultant in the Netherlands.

The students will also be producing spreadsheets that will used to record the plant growth information on, as well as utilizing the Priva Integro computer to identify light levels from the previous year to make comparisons with.

Certificate 4 Production Horticulture student and trainee - Rebecca Meikle starts her crop registration program

2012-13 crop now planted

This week saw our Tomato and Capsicum crops being established with the aid of our students.

Our Certificate 3 students were involved in planting the Pepper's, while our Certificate 4 students spent their class time placing the Tomato plants on to the slabs.

Certificate 3 students planting Capsicum Davos

These practical activities give our students a great opportunity to be involved in a hands on environment with crop growing, and they will be involved in all aspects of the crop development over the forthcoming months.

 

Tomato Levanzo planted by Certificate 4 students

Setting out for the new crop

All of our Certificate 3 students were busy today setting out the Grodan slabs for the new Capsicum and Tomato crops. 

As you can see, we have been busy getting the glasshouse back to a clean and tidy state, which has seen plenty of 'elbow grease' being empoyed in the process!

All of the internal surfaces have been cleaned and we now have our full hygiene protocol in operation.

Now that the slabs are in place we will commence wetting them up in preperation for planting next week. The plants are due to arrive from Trandos Hydroponics in Western Australia at 2.00am on Monday, so an early start for us!

Our new title

At last week's Hydroponic Farmers Federation Conference, we were able to announce that the glasshouse facility has now been branded with the official title of 'The National Precision Growing Centre'.

This new title truly reflects the world class nature of our facility, and will also provide us with a great platform to further promote our online courses across both Australia and the world.

The National Precision Growing Centre has widespread industry support from key industry players such as Grodan, Rijjk Zwaan, and Priva, who have offered ongoing support for the facility. We will be having an official launch of the title, so we will keep you posted when this event will occur.

Out with the old...............

Like many other growers, we are currently taking our old crops out, and starting the annual cleaning process. This is seeing us removing all of the green waste from the glasshouse as well as the rockwool growing slabs. 

While our green waste is taken to a recycling station, our Rockwool slabs are being stacked prior to us shredding them and introducing some organic material. Hopefully this experiment will allow us to produce a composted mulch that can be used in garden areas. 

The trial is the result of the findings of one of last year's VET mobility students - Catherine Ashton - who spent some considerable time with the Grodan company looking at methods for recycling old slabs as opposed to sending them to the landfill tip. As the trial progresses we'll keep you posted.

The clean up commences!

Our new crops are part of a joint project with seed company, Rizk Zwaan. The South side of the house will be planted with single varieties of Tomato and Peppers, while the North side will include a range of varieties. This will allow growers to see first hand how each variety performs. 

As soon as we are ready to plant we will be posting details of the various varieties that can be seen.

Propagation of these plants is being kindly donated by Trandos Hydroponic Growers who have been long term supporters of the glasshouse. 

Finally, we will be at next weeks Hydroponic Framers Federation conference, so feel free to come along and say g'day. If the technology in Ballarat behaves itself, you should be able to see our glasshouse clean up live via our eGlasshouse camera!

The 2012 Hydroponic Farmers Federation Conference

The Hydroponic Farmers Federation 2012 Conference is now open for registration.

This year the conference is being held at the Mercure Ballarat from the 18 - 20 July.

The theme “The Future – Filling in the gaps” addresses many of the issue facing all farmers as they approach challenging times.

Farming is always challenging, but the immediate future offers a new mix of challenges - Buying conglomerates driving down prices, the rising dollar, rising energy costs and competition from imports are some of the challenges that face Victorian farmers.

Facing these challenges  by yourself is daunting. Coming together with others to learn new techniques and approaches and learning from others’ experience is a positive way to assist your business.

Commercial greenhouse & hydroponic production systems are rapidly becoming one of the important solutions to resource pressures (land, water, fertiliser, environment, etc), however growers constantly need to update their growing techniques and technology. This event brings together the knowledge developers (speakers) with the knowledge users (growers) and is a wonderful opportunity to keep abreast of current skills.

And finally, Chisholm Institute will be having a stand at this year's event, so come along and say hello to the teaching staff, and find out more about what we do.

Taking the Training to the Growers..............

Whilst traditional training with TAFE Institutes has always been seen as an 'on campus' exercise, we are now living in an age where there are ever increasing demands and pressures on available time.

In order to maximise the time for training, Chisholm Institute are now actively delivering basic level and specialised training 'on site' for growers.

This week, our glasshouse climate management specialist, Tony Bundock, delivered three days of training for renowned propagation experts, Trandos Hydroponics. The training centred around the use of computerised climate management, and was delivered entirely on site in Perth, W.A.

Danny Trandos, Tony Bundock and Jamie Trandos

"Having Tony come to us to deliver training is great from a logistical point of view" said General manager, Danny Trandos. "Tony was able to train three of us, while we could still keep an eye on our day to day operations. It also made sound financial sense not to have to commit to three sets of flights and accommodation," said Danny.

"The training focused on the way we are using our Priva Integro system, and Tony was able to train one of our new managers in the use of our climate management computer, as well as fine tuning a number of parameters for us. It also meant that we could work with Tony first hand to improve our growing conditions," said Head Grower, Jamie Trandos.

From the trainer's point of view, on site training offers some great benefits. "Being on site at the production facility is a great way to train individuals as you are able to see exactly what their issues and challenges are, and how you can assist them to resolve them," said Tony Bundock. "The growers are also able to learn in a very practical way" said Tony. 

Tony was trained in Holland by the Priva company, and continues to work closely with Priva to develop more training solutions for the wider industry. Whilst this training was based around the Priva Integro system, Tony also conducts training for the Priva Maximiser systems.

If you are interested in having training conducted on your site, feel free to contact Tony directly via email at tony.bundock@chisholm.edu.au

Student run open day

As part of their studies for the Diploma of Production Horticulture, some of our full time International students have been working towards gaining competence in a subject called "Develop a Marketing Plan".

This has seen students being actively involved in promoting the Glasshouse training facility as well as developing resources to promote the process of crop growing, and sales of the final product.

As part of these studies, the Glasshouse doors were opened to a  number of visitors from local community groups, which allowed members of the general public to see what our Industry is all about, as well as affording the students the opportunity to run a presentation and guided tour as part of their studies.

The format for the day was firstly an overview of what happens in the glasshouse in terms of growing techniques and climate management which was delivered by student Kieren Wheeler. This was followed by a guided tour of the crop area. Finally our 'guests' were able to experience some tomato tasting in the form of various recipes form the "Love my Salad" web site - expertly presented by student, Tony Pham.

 Student Annie Ecomo explains about Tomato growing

 

At the end of the day, our students were able to comprehensively prove competence in this part of their course. 

From the visitors point of view, it provided a unique opportunity to see first hand how commercial crops are produced, and to gain a deeper insight in to the whole process of food production.

 

Residents from the Hunters Green Retirement Village 

Garden Club in their bio security attire!