Bosman Van Zaal - South Africa
Bosman Van Zaal - South Africa

Automated Commercial Greenhouse: Avocado Seedling Nursery

Background

Fountain Hill Estate, a farm involved in managing various commercial agricultural activities, was looking for a service provider with the expertise and capabilities to design and implement a bespoke greenhouse solution for their new venture; growing and supplying avocado seedlings.

Challenge

Due to the complexity and intricate nature of the growing process of the seedlings, and to ensure that the commercial standards for optimum yields and quality were met at scale, an automated climate control system was a non-negotiable to achieve the precise control required for a successful outcome.

Bosman Van Zaal’s track record of being market-leading commercial greenhouse engineers made us the ideal candidate for such an undertaking.

Solution

Apart from constructing a state-of-the-art commercial greenhouse, complete with automated  cooling system and energy screen, we supplied and installed a climate controller (HortiMax-Go!) that enables the pre-setting of parameters for controlling the desired inputs.

Automated Greenhouse for Avocado Seedling Production

An example of this would be setting the climate control parameters corresponding with the current season. Setting the sunrise and sunset offset time parameters allows them to be synchronised as they change with the seasons. With the GPS coordinates set, the computer’s weather station gathers information needed to adjust sunrise and sunset offset times automatically. This allows for automated ventilation, the opening and closing of screens as well as heating and cooling (pad and fan system) to occur at the desired times for optimum crop production.

The installed climate computer included the following:

  • Weather station (radiation, outside temperature, wind direction & rain sensor)
  • Mtv Go (temperature and relative humidity)
  • Cooling pad (pad and fan cooling system)
  • Fogging
Ridder Greenhouse Computer and Sensors

After this, the climate control period can be set. This is done by setting the temperature stages for different periods as per the video tutorial below:

The beauty of using the HortiMax-Go! controller to handle all the complexities of climate control is that its Windows based control display makes it intuitive and easy to operate.

The entire solution was rounded off with Bosman Van Zaal providing the training the growing team at Fountain Hill Estate required to manage the system on their own.

Are you looking for a bespoke, automated commercial greenhouse solution to boost crop production and your agricultural operation’s productivity? Contact Bosman Van Zaal South Africa today!

Looking for a robust greenhouse solution with internationally acclaimed quality ?

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Bosman Van Zaal has 90 years of experience in the development and construction of greenhouses and over 40 years' experience with technical systems for international horticulture.

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