It was brilliant to get a peek behind the scenes of one of the worlds largest commercial greenhouses. This place was mindblowing! I was invited to take a tour of Europe's Biggest producer of Brassica plants! It's an impressive operation!
Thank you to Fountain Plants : www.fountain-plants.co.uk/
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0:00:00 Introduction
0:00:16 Seed store
0:00:52 Seed Tray Processing
0:02:13 Seed Tape Processing
0:03:37 Benefits of Seed Tape over Conventional Seed Trays
0:05:07 Germination in a Commercial Glasshouse
0:06:15 Inside Massive Commercial Glasshouses!
0:10:18 Watering 600 million plants!
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When I get opportunities like this, I love to share them with all of you. I know it is something a little different to my usual videos, but I hope you still enjoyed it! P.S. Throughout the tour I kept thinking about how many chilli plants I could fit in that space! 😊🌶🔥
Absolutely mind-boggling how they keep all that space straight and organized! 🤪🤩🙃
35 acres is actually not that big. Many operations in Canada or USA are in that weight class or above. There is also the old Eurofresh range in Wilcox Arizona clocking at 320 acres.
What an operation, thanks for sharing!
awesome, that was a really interesting watch. Its when you see operations like that that you start to realise just how much of a job its going to be for the industry to go peat free.
Mind Blown! Wow, what a lovely setup, I'm impressed with the efficiency and the concept. Beautifully presented and portrayed too, Thank you Shaun, and your contacts.
cool video, i live in Kingsville Ontario Canada. Some greenhouse here are up to 100 acres. They build the whole farm in one build. Its really incredible.
100 acre greenhouse! That must be incredible to see!
Great shots! Also props to the guy for being well articulated and informative! Great video
Leighton was great, really knows his stuff.
Thanks Leighton really interesting to learn more about commerical plant growing
Love it! We have a seven acre house few minutes down the road from us. Does commercial seedlings for stores. All sorts of tomatoes and other veggies. And I thought that was big. 15 acre house 20 minutes away that does landscaping plants. Wow. Thanks for the tour. I would get in trouble with one acre and I know I am not the only one that looks at that and thinks what I could do with that. Lol.
Wow, what an operation! The uniformity of growth is crazy. Thanks for taking the time to take us on a tour.
This was a great video, thanks for taking us along.
...... my mind is now blown. I have a hard enough time with my small raised beds. However I would love to see the automation setup. My inner geek is very happy. Thank you for sharing.
Great documenting, fascinating operation
Wonderful farming
This was great. Thanks for taking us along on your trip.
Super interesting, never thought I'd see blue seeds like that. Fascinating how people came up with all the automation and the processes for streamlining agriculture.
I love that sort of thing! Would be great to come up with those sorts of solutions.
Another neat thing about when seeds are "encapsulated" like that is that usually the mixture has some seed starter feed/nutrients/fertilizer to help the seed starting process also.
Looks amazing and it’s in the UK !!!!!!!!! Thanks for the tour enjoyed that wished I had one of those greenhouses I’d sleep in it lol 😂 cheers 🍻
Fascinating to watch behind the scenes, great video 👌
Thanks for sharing this mate, it's really fascinating 👍👍
Nice to see how the big guys do things great video bud👍
Thanks for this, Sean. I worked for years at asked company in Canada, and it always struck me that people should know a lot more about food production. Seeing the production facilities first hand always amazes. The economy of scale could hardly be better illustrated.
What a fantastic video Shaun. Awww inspiring!!
"Only" about an acre and a half... 🤪Sure, it might be "only" compared to 7 acres, but still hehe. Very interesting and informative. The seed tape was my favourite. It was almost like an episode of "how it's made" 😃Also, nice to see they're making an effort to go peat free 👌
Thanks for sharing 👍 😊
very impressive, thanks for sharing. Greetings from the Galilee
I worked in a giant capsicum greenhouse for 2 weeks. It was just I would guess around 50 workers scraping buckets 10 hours a day. They weren't even all done when I left...
Fantastic video!!!
I believe that would be in the category of "Big Time" operations. Thanks for bringing us along!
I live near fountain plants. Great video
That's Amazing
Wow Shaun! That's amazing. 600 million plants is just non comprehensible isn't it? I net you really enjoyed that day / visit. So envious.
It is pretty mind-blowing. And to make it even more impressive...that is just the number of brassicas! They start plenty other plants too 🤯
@@ChilliChump bloody hell!! Never picked that up from the vid, I thought that was their entirety. I wouldnt even be able to imagine what the total yield is then. Very impressive. If I missed it then I apologise in advance, but where, geographically, are they based?
They are in Boston, Lincolnshire. Not too far from me
Great video, would love to see the next step with the farmers planting them
👍 thanks! They going to start putting these on top of every HIRISE in the city?
Very cool.🌶🍻
I drove past it today on the way to check out a job down Claydike Bank. The place is huge and the setup looks so impressive close up.
It really is!
I'd like to know how the glass was kept clean, and more on the water, otherwise very interesting and informative.
I was ready for an April fools video, where you had "expanded" your chili growing, was a bit disappointed at the beginning but a great video.
I think you could easily lose the passion for growing chillies if you were doing it at this sort of scale. But believe me...it crossed my mind a couple times 🤔
If it was an April fools the company would have been called bloomfountain
Great video, it reminded me of that tv program How It's Made 😄
That was certainly a part of the inspiration for the video!
This is extremely cool. Really fascinating that broccoli the farmers grow probably start at this place prior to planting!
Interesting!!
They have more acreage on greenhouses them we have land all together. I thought our 270m2 greenhouse was pretty big. Just mind blowing. I would love to visit this or similar places. As grower and also as engineer - loved video ❤️
Now I feel even more insignificant with my 6m2 greenhouse...
What an awesome seed starting operation you stumbled into there Shaun! All that fine automation must have filled you with many ideas. One great way to begin the month of April with too. Stay Spicy! -Bob...
💷 I bet those Greenhouse cost a few quid! 😆 All that glass 😲
it would be interesting to see how our domestic chili growers such as South Devon chili farm work. They might not want to tell you since you're partial competition. Would be nice for us who buy their products though.
Good idea! I will reach out to a couple and gauge their interest.
@@ChilliChump that would be awesome
How do the vents open and close?
They are mechanically opened, massive motors using a push rod. All automated.
and theres me thinking buying 10 bags of peat free compost is helping and you have this place still using peat. whats the point
Yep. Gardeners make up a minuscule portion of consumption. We're also a small portion of plastic emissions and carbon emissions. Focusing on the individual when it comes to the environment is simply a way to let companies keep going without changing anything.
Hi Steven uk, you may not be aware but we are currently trialing different products to see if we can come up with an alternative to peat. For every cubic meter of peat we use we can produce 5 acres of field vegetables, the veg in the fields obviously take on a lot of Co2 while they are growing and this out ways the Co2 that is released when the peat is extracted. We only extract 0.04% of the Uk peat lands for the horticultural market. With our planttape machine there is only around 2ml of peat per cell which is obviously a very tiny amount.
Interested in how many hobby gardeners swear by bottom watering but commercial growers and nature top water. Maybe that’s the way to go
If you have sufficient airflow and inert soil, then top watering is fine. Bottom watering helps avoid algae growth...but there are other things you can do to avoid it too
Very interesting video. Really wish they'd hurry up and go completely peat free.
Hi Two_Morbid, you may not be aware but we are currently trialing different products to see if we can come up with an alternative to peat. For every cubic meter of peat we use we can produce 5 acres of field vegetables, the veg in the fields obviously take on a lot of Co2 while they are growing and this out ways the Co2 that is released when the peat is extracted. We only extract 0.04% of the Uk peat lands for the horticultural market. With our planttape machine there is only around 2ml of peat per cell which is obviously a very tiny amount. Going peat free is going to be very difficult as you can’t get the uniformity that the supermarket’s require.
@@leightonwaters8076 great information and well done 👍
One aphid and it's all over I guess
What are these? "Broccoli" And what about these? "Broccoli" And those? "That's all Broccolli"
Difficult to even comprehend the extent of it...
This video was way too short. So much more I would've loved to know.
I have got plenty more footage. It was a great day of learning, really enjoyed it.
Ridiculous process lol
Too bad I hate cabbage. :-))
Interesting and at the same time depressing. Let's all go back to using peat and stuff the planet and our children :(
Hi Rhodri, you may not be aware but we are currently trialing different products to see if we can come up with an alternative to peat. For every cubic meter of peat we use we can produce 5 acres of field vegetables, the veg in the fields obviously take on a lot of Co2 while they are growing and this out ways the Co2 that is released when the peat is extracted. We only extract 0.04% of the Uk peat lands for the horticultural market. With our planttape machine there is only around 2ml of peat per cell which is obviously a very tiny amount.
Nightmarish farming 😬
FYI, The UK isn't part of Europe any more, remember that whole thing? Tee hee, so it's the largest producer in the UK 🤭
Still part of Europe....just not the EU 😉
@@ChilliChump I stand corrected! Ha ha
This is disgusting
?
fascinating stuff, ty