The innovative greenhouse technology essentially means they control the weather. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
When you control the weather, it's possible to keeping growing all year round, as large vegetable producer Leaderbrand has found out.
Since officially opening last April, its Future Farms facility in Gisborne has allowed it to grow salad greens 52 weeks of the year.
The innovative greenhouse technology essentially means they control the weather, its manager Billy Stackhouse told Country Life.
"You have more security every week of supply with something like this," he said.
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Leaderbrand's Future Farms manager Billy Stackhouse. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
Since officially opening last April, Leaderbrand's Future Farms facility has allowed them to grow salad greens all year round. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
Stackhouse has been with Leaderbrand for close to a fifth of the company's 50-year history.
He said it's been exciting to be part of the changes, including overseeing the Future Farms site coming together, which will help the team make "data-driven decisions" and grow better quality produce, more consistently.
The greenhouse requires no additional heating during the winter months, instead trapping warmth from the sun.
When Country Life visited, temperatures inside ranged between 33-34C, while outside it was several degrees cooler at 28C.
There are ways to manage the hot temperatures, as Stackhouse explained.
"[We've] just been putting on some shading spray on top of the greenhouse, so that helps take the heat and light out."
With ideal growing conditions, they can cut and harvest some of the salad greens up to 3 times. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
The team are able to operate a range of vehicles and machines in the greenhouse. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
The greenhouse also has a self-sufficient supply of rainwater harvested from the roof - an area spanning close to 11-hectares or about 15 rugby fields. The water is then transferred into a 50 million litre storage dam to be used for irrigation as needed throughout the year.
"We're all on automated irrigation. So that's all set up on a computer and I can manage that on a day-to-day basis."
It's staffed by a team of about six, including Stackhouse.
Water collected from the roof of the greenhouse is stored and used for irrigation. Photo: Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
The greenhouse is designed so they can still operate 100 to 150 horsepower tractors inside.
"We have some electric machinery - an electric harvester and electric platforms, we call them, with trailers that go alongside the harvester and stack our crates."
Technology, such as a steaming machine, has also helped with one of the most labour intensive tasks. With such great growing conditions, weeds are a pain for growers at any scale.
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