Organic strawberries from the greenhouse
Nature Fresh Farms from Ontario, Canada has been growing vegetables on Forteco® coco growbags since 1999. This fits well with their vision of a sustainable future. Since 2018, they have been exclusively applying the nutrient solution from Van der Knaap Group’s Organic Water System (OWS) in a large section of their vegetable crops. Last year, they decided to use this nutrient solution for growing organic strawberries as well. “Cultivation and growth are going well,” they let us know.
Organic strawberries
The OWS system was installed at Nature Fresh Farms in 2018 for a growing area of 15 acres. That was slowly expanded and by 2024 they were growing vegetables, including tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers, with this nutrient solution on as many as 105 acres. The growing results were so positive that last year they decided to start growing organic strawberries this way.
Nature Fresh Farms already grew strawberries the conventional way, but saw the demand for organically grown produce increase. Although the supply of greenhouse-grown strawberries is also increasing, Nature Fresh Farms was the first company in North America to grow organic strawberries in a greenhouse. The advantage of growing strawberries in a greenhouse as opposed to outdoors is that they are not affected by weather conditions, such as heavy rain or drought. They can thus produce almost year-round: organic strawberries come out of their greenhouse from September to June. It is also easier to regulate the growing conditions in a greenhouse.
At Nature Fresh Farms they focus on taste, quality and freshness, among other things. Finally, making cultivation more sustainable was an important motivation, such as lower water consumption.
Organic Water System
The sustainable cultivation system, or bioreactor, was developed by Van der Knaap’s R&D team. The goal was to be able to grow biologically independent of the subsoil. The bioreactor converts proteins and amino acids into nitrate nitrogen (NO3 -N) that can be absorbed by the plant. The resulting nutrient solution is stable and free of organic residues, fungi and bacteria and can be administered via drippers or other irrigation systems. This gives the grower control over the precise dosage rate and the timing. Organic cultivation thus becomes controllable.
More information
Read more about the sustainable cultivation system on our website. For more information, contact us at rd@vanderknaap.info.