I received word late last week that Little Leaf Farms just raised $300 million in capital to help fund expansion plans that include opening its second location in McAdoo, Pennsylvania, this summer. I reached out to co-founder and CEO Paul Sellew to get more details on the new facility. You may remember we had Little Leaf Farms on the cover of our February 2019 Inside Grower when they were in the process of expanding the original Devens, Massachusetts, location.

That location—a greenhouse for growing leafy greens—is at 10 acres and maxed out for the space available right now, he says, and the McAdoo facility will start at 10 acres, but there’s room for up to 60 acres of production space on 180 acres overall.

 
A Little Leaf Farms greenhouse. 

“Our plan over the next five years between Devens, McAdoo, North Carolina and potentially other locations is up to 100 acres under glass with high-tech leafy greens operations,” he says, noting they have a great location in Yancey County, North Carolina, that will be coming online next year. “That will allow us to really cover half the population of the United States.”

So why the push to expand quickly? “CEA packaged salad is still in the single digits in the market,” Paul says. “It’s still dominated by the West Coast field producers. We think there’s opportunity to bring on new capacity and that’s what we’re doing.”

Despite CEA production being a small player in the larger lettuce industry, Paul says Little Leaf represented 42% of all packaged salads produced in the U.S. sold into commercial grocery stores and customers have been asking for more. Also, he knows where his company’s expertise is and they'll continue to focus on leafy greens.

They'll also continue to use a mobile gutter system with NFT hydroponic technology, he says. The Devens location is heavily automated to reduce the amount of labor and touches needed.

 
The products available from the Devens, Massachusetts, location.

I asked about his interest in AI and other new technology for better crop production, and he says they have an active R&D effort under way to explore all the capabilities involved with those tools.

“We’re getting better and better as a producer, and we feel we’re going to continue that pathway of higher yield and lower cost,” he says. “McAdoo will be more productive than Devens, and we’ll continue to invest and lead the way in the leafy greens space.”

Thanks, Paul, for taking the time to give us the rundown on the new operation!

Bossman Beytes is back from the Netherlands with a report on some of the cool new stuff he saw at GreenTech. Here’s his report:

This was the fifth edition of the GreenTech event in Amsterdam, which had been cancelled in 2020 and 2021 for pandemic reason. Exhibitors and attendees alike were thrilled to get back to the show, which focuses on all sorts of cool controlled-environment agriculture technology, from structures, internal transport and planting inputs to lighting, irrigation, controls and advanced robotics. It's not a giant show, and no word yet on numbers, but it looks to be an up-and-coming event that fills a need.

I was looking for anything I hadn’t seen before at IPM, Horti Fair, NTV or any other European technology showcase, and I wasn’t disappointed.

In robotics, automated harvest has long been a holy grail. Egatec showed the EGA Matic tomato-picking robot, which has been 10 years in development (Egatec has 30 years in vegetable packing and palletizing experience). Their tomato picker is focused right now on cluster tomatoes. It has one gripper that gently grasps the tomato vine, then the arm-mounted cameras identify the pickable tomato clusters and gently grasps the stem.

That blue cone you see then slides up the vine and clips the stem close to the vine. It also removes any leaves along the stem. The arm then places the cluster in a container on the trolley that moves the whole unit through the greenhouse. This is a working prototype, but it’s being tested hard in one of the partner’s tomato greenhouses.

Dry Hydroponics has a patented floating raft for leafy greens that keeps the plant’s media out of the water—hence the name. It can be used for any sort of leafy green or herb.

Why? I was told it improves the shelf life of the harvested plants while reducing disease risks and tip burn issues. This even allows you to grow notoriously temperamental romaine lettuce in a floating system, they say, adding that traditional floating systems that keep the plant’s primary root area wet produce “lazy, weak plants.”

You probably know what an Ellepot is—rooting medium wrapped in special paper. An Ellepot machine makes them like a long cigar, which is sliced into individual Ellepots. Well, what if you didn’t slice up the long soil-filled tube? What if you punched holes in it and laid it on its side in a plastic trough and sowed lettuce seeds in the holes? You’d have the new patent-pending Baby Leaf Sleeve System.

Check it out HERE.

Thanks for the report, Chris!

Want to meet other members of CEA from all around the world and hear expert speakers on a wide variety of topics? You'll have the opportunity September 11 – 14 at the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center (CEAC) at the University of Arizona. They're hosting the International Meeting of Controlled Environment Technology and Use organized by NCERA-101 with international partners.

This meeting was supposed to take place in 2020 to coincide with the 20^th anniversary of the CEAC, but, well, we all know what happened next. The actual event will take place at the Tucson Marriott University Park Hotel in Tucscon, Arizona, and there will be tours of the nearby CEAC, as well as a full roster of speakers, including a keynote from Leo Marcelis from Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Speakers include Erik Runkle from Michigan State University, Jan Westra from Priva, Nadia Sabeh (AKA Dr. Greenhouse), Nate Storey of Plenty, Gioia Massa of NASA-Kennedy Space Center and many more. You can CLICK HERE for the full lineup of speakers and activities.

CLICK HERE for details and to register.

Just a reminder that the one-day CEA Conference “Advancement of Microbial Technologies for Controlled Environment Agriculture” is coming up soon. In fact, it’s the day after Cultivate ends, Wednesday, July 20. So if you’re planning to be in Columbus, Ohio, for Cultivate, then sign up for an extra day of education and networking!

The event is hosted by the Ohio Controlled Environment Agriculture Center at The Ohio State University and will feature a number of speakers on topics like biofungicides, biopesticides and exploring the CEA microbiome.

The bulk of the event will take place at the Kunz-Brundige Franklin County Extension Building in Columbus, with a tour at the end of a new CEA facility. If you can’t make it in person, there’s also a Zoom online option.

CLICK HERE for details, including the lineup, and to register.

First off, what the heck is an IUNU? It’s a Seattle-based CEA tech company focused on AI and it’s main platform is LUNA AI, which pairs software with high-definition cameras to track plant growth and health in indoor settings.

OK, now that we know what the company is, who is it partnering with? I received two announcements on the same day, one from Revol Greens and another from Octiva. First, Revol Greens.

Revol is the greenhouse leafy-greens grower that started in Minnesota and has now expanded to locations in California, Georgia and Texas. They announced last week they chose IUNU as a technology partner to deliver a “fully integrated approach to artificial intelligence, digital solutions and automation at scale to meet rising consumer demand for greenhouse-grown leafy greens.”

The goal, according to the announcement, is to use AI and computer vision to drive higher yields and a higher quality crop. The LUNA CMP, or cultivation management platform, is expected to digitize production operations for maximum efficiency across the locations I mentioned above.

“With LUNA AI and CMP, our staff is positioned to help scale up our business, and enabled to continuously learn and innovate improved growing recipes for existing and new crop launches,” says Mohammed Oufattole, Revol Greens CTO. “Our plant and data scientists have the tools to uncover detailed insights that will further enhance our capabilities and help deepen our competitive moat.

“At Revol Greens, we know the importance of implementing technology like LUNA, and as we continue to plan further expansion, LUNA will put our plants in the driver’s seat.”

Now, Octiva: On the same day Octiva (a Dutch-Belgian company) and IUNU (U.S.-based) announced a partnership to launch new, cutting-edge products to the greenhouse industry. Octiva’s specialty is design and commercialization of robotics applications, so the partnership makes a lot of sense.

According to Adam Greenberg, CEO of IUNU: “IUNU is the market leader in computer vision and AI in our industry and by pairing with Octiva, a leader in robotics, we have the ability to scale faster and provide more value to growers. By integrating IUNU’s AI software on Octiva’s platforms, we can deliver exceptional benefits to the market together.”

I almost forgot—we’ve got webinars coming up and I’m hosting one of them!

Next week, on Tuesday, June 28 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern/Noon Central, Chris Beytes will host our three GrowerTalks/Ball Horticultural Company Young Grower Award finalists in a webinar about overcoming 2022’s challenges. He’ll chat with:

• Quinten Henning, Henning’s Farm & Greenhouse, DeMotte, Indiana
• Mike Krueger, Midwest Groundcovers, St. Charles, Illinois
• Erika Ramos, J. Berry Nursery, Grande Saline, Texas

They’ll talk everything from supply chain strategies and labor issues to weather and much more. CLICK HERE to register for this free event.

Then, on Wednesday, June 29, also at 1:00 p.m. Eastern/Noon Central, tune back in to see me host our Green Profit/The Garden Center Group Young Retailer Award finalists in a similar discussion. I’ll chat with:

• Casey McCollum, Plant Perfect Garden Center, Bismarck, North Dakota
• Ashleigh Munro, Kiwi Nurseries, Acheson, Alberta, Canada
• Will O’Hara, Van Wilgen’s Garden Center, North Branford, Connecticut

We’ll throw in some pricing, ecommerce and events strategies, as well. Come, ask questions, heckle me and feel good about the future of our industry. Again, sign up for both HERE.