2
THECOMMERCIAL GREENHOUSEGROWER • MARCH 2018
GROWINGMEDIA •
Catherine. ¸Labour costs have inÅuenced this but it is
often the replacement of themixingmachinewhich acts
as the catalyst for the grower to turn tobought in ready-
to-useproducts.
Markbelieves that, ¸Less than fiveper cent of growers
are nowmixing their owngrowingmedia. Themajority
wouldprefer amixwhich is pre-made to ensure efficacy,
consistency andperformance, aswell as convenience.
Withour new state of the art factory at EllesmerePort we
candosemuchmore accurately thanmixing equipment
foundon nurseries. It also takes the risk away from the
grower as towhether all the components havebeen
added at the correct rates.We also carry out a series
of quality checks on every batchof growingmediawe
Dr Eleni Siasou, technical manager for growingmedia at ICL.
producewhich a grower wouldn’t necessarily be able to
doon the nursery.¹
Thesequality checks extend to rawmaterials, with
materials of validated, guaranteed efficacy and
consistency beingpreferred for professional use. ¸At
Sinclair wemanage all of our ownpeat harvesting sites to
the highest of environmental andoperational standards
basedon awealthof experience,¹ explainsMarkHamill.
¸By its nature, peat is intrinsically safe and sterile owing
to the conditions under which it is producedwith lowpH
and lownutrient content. No single alternative organic
material can completely replacepeat as a growingmedia
substrate, thoughour researchhas shown that we can
replicate and actually enhance theperformanceof peat for
a number of parameters using amulti-material approach.
OurWest fibre technology has been central to these
developments. As regardswastematerials, Sinclair does
not use greenwaste in any of itsmixes due tohigh level
of inconsistency andpoor performance results. There is
no short cut inour view, greenwaste is not suitable for
delivering highquality plantmaterial.¹
¸Melcourt alsodoesn’t use green compost in its
professional growingmedia unless the customer
specifically requests it andwe only buy from aPAS100
8ualityProtocol certified source,¹ stressedCatherine.
¸Certification should ensureproduct cleanliness but we
ofnutrition
excellence
Guaranteednutrient
releasematching
plantdemand
Maximiseyourreturn
on investmentwith
OsmocoteExact
Haveyougot it?
Checkyour
growingmedia
Thekey tobetterplantgrowth.
Haveyougot it?
The information contained in this advert is correct at time of going to print. According to the availability of rawmaterials and other factors.® registered trademark of ICL International and affiliates. Levington is a registered trademark of theScottsMiracleGro. ISO9001Accredited.
Go to
/.ie
today tofind thebestproduct
foryourcrop, trial resultsand furtherproduct information.
3-4
Months
5-6
Months
8-9
Months
12-14
Months
Choose fromup to four
longevities forcompletecrop
coverage tohelpguarantee
yourcropsnutrition.
+
