GROWING TECHNOLOGY

Lorna Maybery spoke to graduate Oliver Baker, who is caring for cucumbers at the world’s first natural light growing centre

John Cottle

In a world where we have to keep up with a growing population and demonstrate our environmental credentials, British farmers are looking to new and innovative ways to improve their businesses. Company RIPE (Rapid Installation Process of ETFE) builds greenhouses using ETFE, a fluorinebased plastic polymer that transmits up to 95% of natural light with a fraction of the mass of glass. It’s an innovation RIPE hopes will transform how we grow under cover as the material lets in full natural light, is easy to install and long-lasting and not susceptible to weather damage.

To prove the efficacy of ETFE, RIPE has constructed the world’s first natural light growing (NLG) centre at University of Warwick Life Sciences, Wellesbourne, to scientifically prove the impact of full spectrum natural light on crops within a protective environment.

The first crop is cucumbers, looked after by sustainable crop production graduate Oliver Baker, who tells us about his job.

QHow did you end up working at the Natural Light Growing Centre?

I ran out of money for my accommodation while finishing my Master’s in sustainable crop production, so I was looking for work. A job came up for an agricultural assistant in a sustainable greenhouse looking to produce the next level of crop production and it tied in well with my degree. I started working 25-30 hours a week in February alongside my studies and it developed from there.

QWhat are you growing?

We have about 2,000 cucumber plants in here. The greenhouse is split into two halves, baby cucumbers and mini cucumbers. For the baby the sizing is 2.5cm wide and 8-12cm long. With the minis it’s done by a weight specification, and they need to be 105g to 150g – the babys are roughly 40-80g.

Originally, we had two varieties; one to produce babys and one for minis, but we found the variety that we are currently growing is more resistant to disease and can produce both mini and baby cucumbers consistently.

QWhat do you do day-to-day?

I oversee everything from harvesting plants when they reach the right specifications to dropping the crop as they grow to the top of their strings and moving them so they have room to grow. We have two different harvesting cycles, one from February through to July, then July to October. The standard is three. By doing this, we can produce more, as between cycles you get a three-week window where the crop isn’t big enough to produce fruit, so two crops a year gives us three extra weeks of production.

Originally, I was measuring to make sure I picked the right size, but having picked hundreds of thousands of cucumbers, I don’t do that now!

QWhat nutrients do the plants need?

We grow the cucumbers in rockwool with a dripper that goes to each plant and individually supplies a nutrient mixture organised by one of our agronomists, so each plant gets exactly what it needs. This also feeds into a bigger slab of rockwool that all the plants have a shared root base in, so they can all get the same nutrients, even if one of the drips isn’t functioning properly.

We have a variety of biological controls, mostly parasitic wasps and mites that then eat the other insects in here. Then we do a bit of disease mapping to see what is coming in and what we can change in the future.

“I did my Master’s research in here looking at research and development opportunities on how we can improve the hydroponic system and growing environment”

QHow has the project benefited you?

Hands-on experience is important, and this is great for that. I did my Master’s research in here looking at research and development opportunities on how we can improve the hydroponic system and growing environment, looking at things like having a wildflower meadow outside to encourage insects to come inside to pollinate. We are currently using rockwool to match commercial production techniques, but will be trialling coir and our own new biologicallyactive substrates from this year. I also have the idea of creating an eco-label that could promote the quality of our fruit as more sustainable, environmentally friendly and of a higher quality.

QWill you stay now you have your Master’s degree?

We have two years of Innovate funding and we are going to be doing some interesting stuff with the bio-stimulants, so for the foreseeable future yes. I know the crop and the environment and I should be able to find some interesting research to prove what we are doing here is the next step, particularly with global warming becoming more of an issue. The more we can get out of a crop and put longevity into it, the better it is for the UK’s long-term food security and for public health if we can produce a more nutritious food. There’s all this complicated stuff, but the bottom line is simple, if it tastes good, people are going to buy it. That’s the end goal.

Founder, MD and CEO of Evolve Growing Solutions and RIPE Phillip Lee explained a bit more about the science behind the trial:

QWhat makes ETFE so special?

The critical thing is that this material is invisible to the plant as it lets in all the natural light, unlike glass. You would never get a suntan in your conservatory but you would get a hell of a tan in here. It also lasts for a long time and, if you get hole in it, you can come back 20 years later and the hole won’t have propagated. The material is inert and reusable. ETFE doesn’t reflect light and it’s self-cleaning.

QHow did this project come about?

We reached out to CHAP, (Crop Health and Protection), one of four UK Agri-Tech Innovation Centres, and they said they would like to get behind us. There were a couple of possible sites for this, but Warwick is internationally famous for research so this was the place to establish the facility. George Beach heads up the Mudwalls fresh produce brand and is working with RIPE to market their cucumbers and bring their innovative growing techniques to the attention of the buying public. He is doing this through a partnership with online retailer 44 Foods, which is able to take produce from the farm to the consumer in a minimal journey, providing the freshest possible produce.

QWhat is Mudwalls?

Mudwalls Farm Ltd brings farmers and growers together and is the bridge to taking that product to market. We work closely with several small independent retailers, as well as bigger retailers.

QExplain Mudwalls' involvement with RIPE

Mudwalls is working in association with RIPE, the developer of this innovative growing system which is producing amazing cucumbers.

As a small grower, it can be difficult to get your produce to a wider market, and so we are facilitating this and selling the cucumbers through 44 Foods. We can also tell the story of how they are grown and what makes them so good. Through the website we can tell consumers that this isn’t just a cucumber, this is a cucumber grown using innovative methods, resulting in superior flavour. For the smaller grower it’s often a better route to market than the multiple retailers.

QWhat is 44 Foods?

44 Foods is an online retailer business set up to deliver a great fresh product from the farm into the box and out to the consumer. We are reducing the distribution time and the mileage and giving the consumer the benefit of virtually picking it themselves.