Let’s say, theoretically, there are two greenhouse operations working side by side. Both grow the same crops in the same climate using the same methods and equipment. However, one operation consistently yields 10% more than the other. Seemingly coincidental, the employees of the higher yielding operation also go out for a beer together once a week.

Is it coincidental? Probably not. The fact that the employees go out for a beer together is a sign of the organization’s culture. The better the culture, the better the yield. Read on to learn why and how to improve the culture at your greenhouse operation.

The human impact on crop results

Almost anyone can be a good farm worker if they are able-bodied, trained correctly, and motivated. Most greenhouse operations focus on the first two points—able-bodied and trained—but the third point is the one that makes all the difference. Motivated employees are more invested in their jobs. When employees are invested in their work, they:

• Work more efficiently
• Spot diseases and pests early on
• Pay closer attention to details
• Try to improve themselves
• Enjoy their work more
• Work at the same greenhouse for many years
• Have an overall higher work ethic

These factors can lead to an up to 10% increase in yield without changing any equipment or materials at a greenhouse. The next question is how to ensure your employees are motivated.

Developing skilled and motivated workers

As greenhouse operations grow and work becomes more advanced, farms need more employees with more skills. This requires training new teams of growers who may not have come from generations of farmers.

A great way to train them is through clear presentations of practices and protocols at your greenhouse. Employees who think their employers provide them with the knowledge and tools to succeed often feel more motivated to work hard.

It is also important to show workers the impact of their actions. When growers see the direct results of their work, they learn and are motivated to improve. It’s important to measure crop results and ensure the measurements are visible to all. When employees see that they are being evaluated by the quality of their work and they have access to their results, they will be motivated to improve that quality.

Managing motivated workers

Maintaining motivated workers comes from the top down. This means that managers, team leaders, and other people up the hierarchy are responsible for developing motivation. Here are two ways to develop motivation:

• Attitude: The way managers treat employees has the biggest impact on motivation. When managers are professional, helpful, and careful not to be overly critical, employees feel more valued and motivated. This means that managers must watch how they speak with employees and ensure they are not demotivating hard-working employees.
• Rewards: Everyone loves to be recognized for their achievements. Rewarding employees is a great way to keep up motivation. You might sponsor a team breakfast or happy hour once the team reaches a specific milestone or achieves a goal. Individual employees can be called out for their actions, further motivating them and others to outperform in hopes of being rewarded.

Why soft skills are important

Knowledge and experience are hugely important in this industry, but a good manager needs the soft skills to impart their skills to employees. Good managers must be able to coach employees to be skilled workers. The better a manager’s soft skills are, the more employees will listen and learn.

It is very beneficial to invest in management training. Managers who attend leadership and communication courses are more effective at motivating employees and generating better results within their team.

Investing in workers

Happy employees are not the only outcome of investing in workers. This investment also has a positive ROI. Let’s say, for example, that one hectare of farmland yields you $300,000 per year of profit. As we mentioned earlier, motivated employees can lead to a 10% increase in yield, so that means your hectare could yield up to $330,000. Wouldn’t it be beneficial to invest a portion of the increased profits in your employees?

You might use this money to provide additional training days for employees or a fun social event for everyone. These investments are a small portion of your added profits, but will make employees feel invested in and valued.

Don’t be afraid of investing in new teams that haven’t yet proved their worth. Initial overhead to make new employees feel valued with pay off by the end of the season.

Maintaining your top resources

Your workers are the most expensive and important tools at your greenhouse. They need to be maintained just like every other piece of equipment. If you ensure to create a good atmosphere and culture, your greenhouse will benefit as will your bottom line.

If you don’t know where you are going, how will you ever get there? This is precisely why crop planning is one of the most important success factors for greenhouse farmers.

Crop planning involves creating a program for your greenhouse before the start of the season.

This includes the number of plants, the expected weather and sunlight, and your forecasts for growth and production.

While some farmers say unpredictable weather makes crop planning irrelevant, they are completely wrong. Read on to learn why.

The value of a good crop plan

In farming, what’s more important: total yield or consistency? If you said total yield, then you haven’t thought about your customers—the distributors that are purchasing your crops and selling them to consumers. Your customers are not looking for the highest yield, they are looking for a consistent supplier who can supply them a steady stream of quality crops week after week.
If your focus is on total yield, you might oversupply one week, and then undersupply the next. When this happens, distributors may not want to buy your oversupply, leading you to scramble if you want to sell your crops instead of wasting them. When you undersupply, distributors must source from other sellers. This inconsistency, in turn, can lead to price volatility for your crops.
A good crop plan helps farmers achieve consistent production. When you plan at the beginning of the season, you have a good idea of how to allot your resources and labor workforce, and can make educated predictions about growth and yield. Your customers love this. They rely on your forecasts to help them make their own business decisions. When you provide this reliability and stability to customers, you create long-term relationships that will continue to support your greenhouse season and after season. All of this starts with crop planning.

What a crop plan means in daily operations

A crop plan makes a farmer more proactive rather than reactive. Farmers with successful crop plans are more aware of what is happening in their greenhouse and can plan ahead. They use the plan to figure out if they need to order new accessories or equipment, how to organize their workforce, and to control production.
The plan also helps farmers understand if they are on track according to forecasts. If something is not going to plan, adjustments can be made early on so that there are no surprises at the end of the season.
To effectuate a good crop plan, you also need to analyze crop registration. Your plan includes your expected registration, including growth speed, pollination, fruit development, leaf length, and other indicators of plant health. Throughout your season, you will measure and analyze crop registration and compare it to your projections. If you are on target, great job! If your growth is behind or ahead, see what adjustments can be made to ensure optimal production.
For example, if your plants are growing better than expected due to optimal lighting and weather conditions, you might need to adjust forecasts for additional production. Maybe you need to find more laborers or even more customers for your additional crops. On the other hand, if growth is behind schedule, find out why and see what can be done to provide your plants with additional support. The earlier you obtain these insights, the better equipped you’ll be to make any necessary pivots.

What to include in a crop plan

Your crop plan includes all the different parameters that affect plant growth. Here are several items:

• Number of plants: This helps you understand spacing in your greenhouse and is the basic data point for expected growth.
• Expected light: Light significantly affects growth. The number of daylight hours or any artificial light will impact your forecasts.
• Expected growth speed: You can benchmark this from previous seasons or from what other farmers in your climate experience.
• Pollination speed: This is based on plant variety and environmental conditions.
• Forecasts: You should include weekly production forecasts for at least six to eight weeks.

Each crop variety needs its own plan. If you’re growing five tomato varieties, you’ll create five different plans.

Planning for success

A crop plan is your guideline for measuring the development of your crops. Once you’ve effectuated crop planning over several seasons, you’ll have more data and benchmarks to improve future planning. This is the foundation for operating a successful greenhouse business.

You’ll find that having a plan improves the overall quality of your production while strengthening your relationships with your customers. The more customers rely on and appreciate you, the more successful you will be.

The best production is stable and reliable. Just ask your customers.

Thirty years of success does not guarantee 31 years of fruitful farming. Weather changes, crops evolve, substrates vary, and new discoveries are uncovered, meaning crop managers must continually learn and improve to ensure future yield.
How can you learn while you’re out tending to your crops? Here are the top ways to improve your learning curve to optimize your operations.

Connect with neighbors

Crowdsourcing and collective knowledge are two of the best ways to gain information in today’s world. You can learn almost anything from meeting and discussing your thoughts with experts who are also invested in the field. This is true for farmers and especially for farmers in the same area.
Your neighbors are likely working with the same weather conditions and the same suppliers and may have important insights. If you establish friendly relationships with neighbors, you can discover their strategies and approaches, and see their results. You might uncover their mistakes or learn helpful tips and tricks.
When you meet your neighbors, don’t be the person with the most knowledge, be the person with the most questions. You will learn a lot by asking what others are doing and why.

Be a good neighbor

If you want your neighbors to share information with you, you will need to share information with them. Don’t think of it as sharing trade secrets with a competitor, think of your knowledge share as a rising tide that lifts all boats. Everyone will benefit from pooling insights and information. When you share and collect knowledge you will have a large database to assist in your decision making.
However, when sharing and collecting information from neighbors, it is important to ensure that everyone has proper plant registration and is collecting data similarly to ensure that data is comparable. This brings us to the next point.
Analyze crop registration
Crop registration is critical for analyzing data about your plants. You should measure leaf length, fruit development, pollination, and other indicators of plant health. When you have quantifiable data, it is easy to measure and compare with data from previous years or your neighbors and colleagues.
Accurate crop registration also allows you to track the impact of any changes you make. For example, you might notice a difference in leaf length when you adjust your watering practices. You might also discover something by comparing your crop registration with your neighbors or by working with a crop consultant who can provide insights into your analysis.

Visit industry events and fairs

Trade shows, exhibitions, and fairs are great places to see new technology and learn the latest insights and discoveries. You can listen to researchers lecture about their findings and meet with experts outside of your neighborhood group.
Events can get you out of your comfort zone and often provide inspiration and motivation to try new things and expose you to ideas that you might never have thought of. You might find new tools or technology that can help you improve operations, or you might meet colleagues with whom you can develop new business.
Paskal enjoys attending industry events and fairs such as GreenTech Americas, GreenTech Amsterdam, and HortiContact Go. If you see us at an exhibition, please say hi!

Study educational and academic material

Growing is a very practical profession. This might seem at odds with academics, which tends to be more theoretical. However, a good understanding of theory is very useful when making practical decisions. Theory can guide you and ensure your decisions are based on sound and proven information. While it takes a significant investment of time and money to acquire an education, it can be very beneficial in the long run.
As with any subject, learning about farming is best in groups. Study groups that meet consistently to discuss academic materials can provide deeper insights and create a group of colleagues that can be called upon in the future for consultations. Study groups and education can also be strengthened with the help of professional experts or consultants.

Join the collective knowledge

You might be happy with your farming results, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do better. No matter your results today, it’s important to stay humble and know that next season will likely be different.
You might have noticed that all the aforementioned methods to improve your learning curve have one thing in common: they require cooperation. Sure, you could probably operate a successful horticulture business alone, but it will never reach its full potential without collective knowledge from peers and colleagues.
We hope you will go forth and collect and share knowledge, just as we try to do on our blog by sharing our insights from our own experience in the field.

The way people eat is evolving. As knowledge increases and diets change, consumers are weighing different things in their decision-making.
Here are some of the top trends shaping consumption and what this means for farmers.

Increased consumer awareness

Consumer awareness has undergone a profound evolution over the past half-century due to technological advancements, changes in societal norms, a growing emphasis on sustainability and social responsibility, and an increase in average education.
In the 1960s, consumers tended to purchase whatever was offered to them at the stores. They bought what they needed and wanted to consume without questioning the health content. To meet demand, many producers used significant amounts of chemicals to produce high quantities of beautiful produce. This ensured that there was enough supply to meet consumer demand and helped farmers maximize the value of their crops.
Today’s consumers are now interested in where their produce came from before it hit the grocery store shelves. They may want to know about growing methods and nutritional content.

The growing appetite for vegetables

Vegetables used to have a bad rap when it came to taste, but in recent years there has been a notable increase in vegetable consumption worldwide. As plant-based diets become more popular and consumers become more health conscious, vegetables are no longer just considered a side to a main dish. Today many diets focus on vegetable consumption because of their health benefits. Unlike protein or carbs, which can cause health problems if consumed in excess, vegetables can never be overconsumed.

Today there are many movements and culinary trends that showcase vegetables and prove that healthy foods can be as delicious or even more delicious than their more gluttonous counterparts.

More opting for organics

Organic used to be considered a luxury for consumers with extra disposable income. They were expensive because traditional organic growing methods were difficult and volatile.
However, the average consumer’s disposable income has increased. In the 1960s, the average American family spent 17.5% of household income on food, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Today, families spend less than 10% and they are more likely to spend it on foods that are healthy and nutritious.
In the meantime, modern growing methods have made it easier and less expensive to produce organic crops. In the past, organic crops needed to be grown in specific soil, which was great for roots, but also difficult for farmers to monitor and avoid diseases. Today, farmers can use substrates and have better control over their organic produce. It still may be more difficult to produce organic products, but profit margins are bigger for organics, making this important for business operations.
As prices for organics go down and the average disposable income goes up, the market for organic produce is rapidly growing.

Going with your gut: the importance of the microbiome

There has been significant research lately on microbiomes and how they affect health. Every person has a collection of bacteria in their body that plays an essential role in digestion, immunity, and metabolism.
Recent studies show that consuming organic produce can have a positive effect on the development of a person’s microbiome. This, in turn, can lead to increased nutrient absorption and improved immunity and metabolism.
Research on this topic is still ongoing, but the more that is discovered, the more scientists learn about the effects of food on human’s overall health.

What do these trends mean for farmers?

Some farmers might benefit from producing organically. It can lead to new opportunities in the market and improve profitability. Switching to organic growing methods can be a difficult transition for farmers, especially when conventional methods including pesticides and chemicals have proven successful.
Farmers who want to join these trends should start small. Create pilots in greenhouses or fields to test organic growing methods and ensure they will work at the farm. As organic growing becomes more familiar, farmers can decide whether this method works for them and their businesses.
Today there is still a huge market for conventionally produced crops. The world’s population is increasing and there is a huge industrial food chain relying on low-cost crops.
Whichever way farmers produce, ensuring food safety is a top priority. This means using food safe materials and equipment. Paskal, for example, uses raw materials that comply with FDA regulations 21 CFR 177.1520 for Substances for Use as Basic Components of Single and Repeated Use Food Contact Surfaces, or 21 CFR 178.3297 for Indirect food additives.

Take charge of your marketing, communication, and education

Farmers know their business better than anyone else and they are responsible for making the best decisions to ensure the sustainability of their business and production. Sometimes improving business sustainability requires taking initiative and trendsetting and sometimes it means doing what they do best.
Farmers can always experiment with new growing methods, involving universities and students in advanced research, and cooperating with other farmers, organizations, and even other disciplines. For example, farmers can cooperate with life science or medical experts to advance research in both areas.
The more we learn about health and sustainability, the better equipped everyone will be to ensure a more fruitful future.

Every pest has a natural predator. While many farmers use chemicals to rid their greenhouses of pests, using these natural predators instead has significant benefits.

What is biological control

When pesticides were first invested, they appeared to be a great solution for protecting crops from pests. However, it was soon discovered that the more you use pesticides, the more resistant pests become. Farmers must spray chemicals more often and may need to switch to more toxic chemicals periodically.

Additionally, the chemicals in pesticides are also harmful to plants. Studies show that after spraying, plants stop growing for at least one day. If a farmer sprays once a week, they lose 10%-15% of plant growth.

In response, farmers started exploring a different method for controlling pests in greenhouses. In natural ecosystems there is a balance between predators and prey. If farmers can create the right balance in their greenhouse ecosystem, they have a natural method for controlling pests. This is called biological control.

Advantages of biological control

Farmers using biological control experience several advantages that can lead to optimal yield and better business results. Here are a few of the benefits.

• Long-term solution: Natural ecosystems can survive for hundreds of years because of the equilibrium inside. The same goes for greenhouses using biological controls. If the right balance is obtained, this is an indefinite solution that farmers can rely on. There is no need for constant changes to maintain the equilibrium.
• Cleaner crops: Plants and crops are chemical-free, which is becoming preferable to distributors and consumers. Consumers are willing to pay more for cleaner crops and the demand for them is growing. Additionally, there are some products that cannot be protected with chemicals. For example, if you use bees for pollination at your farm, chemicals will harm them.
• Improved yield: Pesticides cost growers 10%-15% of growth. With biological control, plants grow bigger and faster meaning there is a greater yield of quality crops.

How to implement biological control in your greenhouse

Using biological control in a greenhouse is all about finding balance. You need to find the right equilibrium in your environment.

Step 1: Stop using chemicals

To use biological control, you must reduce chemical use as much as possible. Chemical use will destroy your natural predators and topple your equilibrium. It may take time to completely rid a greenhouse of chemicals. The residue might remain for up to two years before it completely disappears. However, once you decide to use biological control, it is better to stop or minimize chemical usage.

Step 2: Bring in natural predators

Every pest has a natural predator. You should know what pests are present in your greenhouse and import their predators. For example, if you have aphids in your greenhouse, you might bring in ladybugs, parasitic wasps, or birds. There are guidelines for how many natural predators to release in your greenhouse, but it is recommended to err on the side of caution. Bring in more than you think you’ll need. The expense of extra natural predators is much less than the costs of too many pests. The security and safety of your crops is worth the extra investment.

You must remember that natural predators need the pests to survive. Pests are their food so if you bring in too many natural predators, an equilibrium will be created based on the amount of their food source.

Step 3: Scout and monitor

With biological control, it is very important to frequently and accurately monitor the ecosystem you created in your greenhouse to ensure the equilibrium is maintained. A new development is the use of cameras; however, it can be tiring to watch for pests on cameras.

A proven and efficient method is to use sticky cards that catch insects. Based on what you catch, you can extrapolate how many pests and natural predators are present in your greenhouse.

You must also monitor plants for growth. If you see that crops are getting destroyed by pests, you might need more natural predators. It’s important to map your greenhouse and strategize how to monitor it. A good scouting and monitoring system will leave you with fewer surprises, meaning less work and higher efficiency.

The value of cleaner products

Today, supermarkets and consumers are becoming stricter about what products they accept. People are more aware of chemicals and their unhealthy effects on the human body. As farmers, we have a responsibility to provide healthy and safe products to consumers. We also have a responsibility to protect our environment by not introducing poisonous chemicals.

While this is an important thing for the environment and our planet, it is also great for business. The higher demand for greener products means that distributors and retailers are willing to pay higher prices. This is a relatively simple way to create more value in your farming business and increase profits.

This method is for you if you want to create a better world and make more money doing it.