Article taken from The Fruit Grower, August 2017, written by Joanna Wood.
Botanicoir's new product, Precision Plus Ultra, is capable of rapid hydration, has optimum air-filled porosity, a superior structure and offers excellent drainage capacity and ease of steering. At a well attended launch at Fruit Focus, Paul Bennett of Agrovista, looking back only a decade, charted the developments that led to this 'game-changer' in the soft fruit industry.
Only ten years ago, many growers still grew their soft fruit crops in the ground and substrate growing was still in its infancy in the UK. As Paul said, ""They were still having to handle ready-to-use peat or coir bags, and Botanicoir compressed coir planks were the 'new kids on the block' . It was not long until growers began to see the benefit of handling the Botanicoir compressed slab, as well as the agronomic advantages of a consistent, well-buffered and graded material. And, due to the profile of the bag once rehydrated, it offered the same depth of substrate to all plants"".
Working with growers, Agrovista and Botanicoir developed the 'mark 2' mix - Precision Plus. 'Precision' referred to the consistency of grading and buffering, and 'Plus' referred to the ability of the material to be re-used. ""The product went down a storm, and our share of the U.K market continued to grow. It was at this point that we realised what an impact the success of UK soft fruit growers was having on the world market - growers from all over the world were seeing what was being achieved here in the UK and were contacting us to supply material and provide support to projects all around the globe. The result is that now Botanicoir exports to over 40 countries"", Paul added.
""As pressures build on our industry, due to uncertainty of trade agreements, currency fluctuations, questions over labour availability and pressures on prices, the timing of the launch of our 'mark 3' product, Precision Plus Ultra, could not have been better. As far as the team at Agrovista UK is concerned; it allows us to offer a solution to our growers [who are] looking for a rapidly hydrating, consistently well-buffered, easily steerable and ultimately reusable substrate. Results have been wonderful, and that is what matters!"" said Paul.
Botanicoir's managing director Kalum Balasuriya said that the company had been manufacturing and selling value-added products over the last 12 years, ""Throughout which, we have worked tirelessly alongside some of the smartest people in the business to continually develop and improve what we can offer the industry. Back in 2012, we took all the information and the knowledge that we had gained and launched what, at the time, was to be a market leader for soft fruit coir substrate - Precision Plus. But you all know, as well as I do, that this is an ever-evolving industry and there is always something that we can improve.""
Kalum said that the idea for Precision Plus Ultra was born through hearing that substrate in general was too wet in the second and the third year. ""I had many conversations with Mark Davies, Stephen McGuffie, Sandy Booth and various consultants and agronomists, and an idea started to form. Back in Sri Lanka, the team and I started the R&D stage of what was to become Precision Plus Ultra. I am delighted that Nuwan, Head of Operations, and Tennakoon, Head of Quality Control, are here with us today to see what they have achieved"".
Kalum described the product: ""Our aim was to develop an open-structured mix that could offer more free drainage, as well as improve on the longevity of the bag, hoping to offer growers the option to maximise the re-use of the slabs. Precision Plus Ultra does indeed cover these points and achieves the difficult high levels of buffering throughout the bag. The superior structure not only means that the opportunity for re-use is maximised but, more importantly, it enables growers to steer the crop by controlling the moisture level in the bag. It is also very quick to hydrate"".
A 1.0ha trial of bags by Sandy Booth, from New Forest Fruits in the 2015/2016 season went so well that last year Sandy switched his whole operation over to Precision Plus Ultra. This gave Botanicoir the confidence to change all its production to Precision Plus Ultra, and they plan to produce and ship approximately 3.5 million 1.0m slabs this season.
Speaking at the launch, Ashley Wensak, currently managing the irrigation of the polytunnel crops, and acting glasshouse manager, at New Forest Fruits, said, ""All our crops are grown in substrate, and we have been working with Botanicoir since about 2010"". New Forest Fruits, based near Lymington in Hampshire is a 66ha operation using polytunnels and glasshouses, and is an early site in terms of soft fruit production. ""Botanicoir Precision Plus has been working well in our systems, so naturally we were excited to trial Precision Plus Ultra in 2015. We took our first delivery of just over 5,700m of the new formulation in February 2016 and set it up ready for Murano everbearer strawberries in a block of Spanish tunnels. Four to six weeks after planting, the fleece used to speed up establishment was removed and we had our first overview of the crop developing in the Ultra formulation. We were pleased to see excellent root development running right from the top of the coir to the bottom, so that the roots filled the bag. The main observations were a 4-5% yield increase and the distinct difference in the appearance of the coir (larger, light brown particles as well as the more familiar regular coir), lower wet probe readings and increased drainage. This year, in a side-byside trial, we have seen a 5% yield increase so far and very little deficiency noticed in either of the bags"".