From 11-13 June, you will find the teams of Klasmann-Deilmann and Maan Biobased Products at GreenTech (stand 05.405). They will enter the exhibition floor with three progressive products. Namely: Growcoon, Growbag Advanced and the most eye-catching at the moment: the biodegradable substrate Nygaia. This year the product convincingly grabs the spotlight. Besides being nominated for the GreenTech Concept Award, the makers announced a ground-breaking unveiling during GreenTech.
Next level
What started as a dream is increasingly becoming a reality. Maan's engineers developed the Nygaia Plugline, which allows growers to produce their own substrate plug, on their own site. An entirely new decentralized substrate concept. Its unique advantage is that the plug can be completely customized to the grower's needs and produced on demand. This ensures that fewer container ships need to travel the world to meet substrate demand. And that leads to a significantly lower footprint.
During GreenTech, one of the modules will be on display live for the first time.
Nygaia in cultivation
Over the past year, the substrate plug was extensively tested in various crops. Besides lettuce, these include tomato, pak choi, basil, baby leaf, strawberry, spinach, rosemary, parsley, and rocket. This has - in addition to strikingly positive results - also provided new insights. With these, the developers have perfected the plug. They have paid very close attention to the plug's stability, for instance, and the intensive smell is now absent... Conclusion: the growing results are getting better and better and are more consistent. Ready for the next phase.
Nominated for Concept Award
Promising, in other words. And that has not gone unnoticed. Nygaia was recently nominated for a GreenTech Concept Award. (The award for innovations that are not yet on the market but have everything it takes to be successfully introduced within two years). The substrate concept is a remarkable standout, among the data- and AI-driven technological feats presented by the other nominees. Yet Nygaia fits perfectly in a high-tech and controlled environment, according to its creators. It contains all the properties that Controlled Environment Agriculture demands of a substrate. It is inert; contains no nutritional value by itself, exerts no influence on pH or EC and is pathogen-free. 'As a grower, it gives you full control over your own cultivation process', says Tjeerd de Looze, Product Manager of Maan Biobased Products.
Future prospects
The makers see a bright future ahead. The demand for inert, renewable substrates is only increasing. With Nygaia, they hope to meet that demand in the foreseeable future. As early as this summer, production could be scaled up to commercial volumes and the first Nygaia plugline will be available for testing.
For more information:
Klasmann-Deilmann
www.klasmann-deilmann.com