United Farms

Robert van der Geest, Chief Operating Officer of the Mexican vegetable produce company United Farms (65 hectare), is one of the initiators to increase focus on data management within the company. United Farm has chosen the Plant Empowerment concept combined with MyLetsGrow for the analysis and monitoring of their data.

Robert: “Plant Empowerment helps us as a company to make better decisions, optimise growing conditions, increase productivity, improve quality and then improve the bottom line of the business.

We are learning to focus much more on crop management data. We are taking advantage of the available energy to optimise crop conditions. Always looking for the balance of the different elements which includes how to convert energy or light into photosynthesis, how to maintain relative humidity levels or how to optimise humidity. Also, how to increase the speed by which the crop grows while maintaining a more stable temperature and radiation rate.”

Or Weiss, grower at United Farms and a user of LetsGrow.com: “Once learning the Plant Empowerment concept by applying it, you already have the values you are looking for and you find which ones work to reach the different balances.

I use MyLetsGrow a lot for analysis. It offers me all the tools I need to analyse: to compare yesterday with today. In MyLetsGrow, I can also determine the parameters I am looking for and I am quickly able to spot whether I am still within the acceptable range. Then I analyse why I am still within or outside of this range.”

Features

Within United Farms, they use the MyLetsGrow platform to connect multiple locations. We also train the growers to do crop registrations, and in the practical applications of the Plant Empowerment concept.

Additionally, we analysed all crop management data from previous years to discover what United Farms could improve in their growing process. Furthermore, we use this data to determine the optimal crop and greenhouse-specific growing strategies. We have created dashboards which the growers and the head grower use to monitor and track how the crop is doing according to their target values.

Company management now experiences increased transparency of what occurs in all of their greenhouses, and the why of it.