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Written by Massoud
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Monday, 26 July 2010 05:27 |
| | | | Cultivating
Before we can plant bulbs, preparation of the soil is needed. We plough the soil, take care of the drainage and make the soil suitable for planting bulbs. All this is done with special equipment and machinery. Spring 1999 we started a new watering fertiliser system: water is given to the crop by underground tubing. The system efficiently waters and fertilises the flowering bulbs. In this way we can cut on the use of fertiliser and water and save the environment. Planting
After preparing the soil we plant the bulbs. Every type of bulb has its own planting period. For more detailed planting information look at the bulb guides of www.bulb.com. Planting the bulbs is done by machinery. At the photo you see our planting machine in action. According to a planting schedule the bulbs are planted. We change the bulbs annually from field in order to reduce diseases. We never plant the same type of bulb at the same field several years in a row.
The planting machine puts the bulb in the ground at a certain dept and covers it up with soil. After planting the bulbs are protected from freezing with hay. The Dutch term for this is: "stro dekken". At the second photo you see our "stro dek machine" giving the bulbs their protection for the winter. Selecting
In the spring we walk through the fields, not because the weather is nice, but to check the flowering bulbs. This process is called selection. The selecting people are trained to pick out diseases by looking at the flowers. The selecting people are trained annually for this job to refresh their memory on what diseases look like.
After continuos selections the field are checked by an organisation called BKD (Organisation for quality control on flower bulbs). They make sure the field live up to the standard and are free of diseases. Especially for Japanese market this control is strict. Our entire crop is checked by Japanese standards and therefore of the highest quality. After the approval of the BKD the fields can be harvested. The fields are prepared for harvesting by cutting the tulip flowers from the bulbs. This action makes the tulip a better bulb. At the photo you see the tulips being cut. Only the top of the flower is cut, the leaves and plant remain. Harvesting
Most of the flower bulb growers start lifting their summer crop at the beginning of June. The first bulbs are at this time ripe for harvesting. Special machinery is used to get the bulbs undamaged out of the ground. The Dutch term for this process is called: "rooien". At the photo you see our machinery lifting up the bulbs. The machine picks up the bulbs, clears the soil and dirt and transports the bulbs in large boxes. People at the machine pick out remaining weeds, rocks and dirt before the bulbs fall into the box. At this stage the bulbs are rather dirty and need further processing to become the bulbs you order. Drying
The boxes with bulbs are placed in front of special blowers called "droogwand" (drying wall). By blowing outside air through holes in the wall the bulbs become dry. Heating the outside air slightly will shorten the drying time. To find the perfect balance in the duration of drying bulbs is one of the secrets for growing good quality bulbs. After drying bulbs will be transported to storage or directly processed for pealing.
A special climate-control computer is used to dry the bulbs just right. The system monitors and controls temperature, humidity, fans and heaters for 24 hours a day. The computer alarms our storage manager 24 hours a day, in case something is wrong. Cleaning
At this stage the bulbs are still dirty and new small bulbs are still attached to the old 'mother' bulb. Of course bulbs cannot be sold like this and need further cleaning. The Dutch term for cleaning bulbs is "bollen pellen". Roots and old material are pealed off by hand. Sometimes machinery is used to peal the bulbs, however a number of bulbs are not suitable for this and are pealed by hand to prevent bulb damage. After pealing, the bulbs look nice and clean. These are the bulbs you are used to buy at your garden centre or supermarket. Sorting
The next step is sorting the different bulbs by size. The cleaned bulbs are put into a sorting machine. At the photo you see our sorting machine with daffodils bulbs on it. This machine is calibrated to sort out different sizes of bulbs. The daffodils bulbs travel over the snare. At the input of the machine the space between the snares is narrow at the end the space is broad. Therefore small bulbs drop at the beginning and bigger bulbs at th end of the machine. The bulbs are sorted by size in large wooden boxes. The sizes of the bulbs in our industry sizes have a standardisation. During the sorting process the quality of the bulbs are controlled. A part of the sorted bulbs, the smaller sizes will be used for planting material. This means that these bulbs will be used to produce next year's crop.
Directly after sorting, the bulbs are counted with a counting machine. The bulbs are counted automatically. The counting machines can count up to 200.000 to 300.000 bulbs per machine per day. The bulbs are counted in different kind of boxes, depending on what is ordered by our customers, e.g. the Dutch exporters. At the photo you see that bulbs are counted by the machine. After counting, the bulbs are transported for delivery or are stored in climate controlled storage rooms. Storage
Bulbs can be temporarily stored in out cilmate-controlled rooms if necessary. The planting material for next year's crop will be store for a longer period. A special climate-control computer is used to dry the bulbs just right. The system monitors and controls temperature, humidity, fans and heaters for 24 hours a day. (For further informatie: www.sercom.nl.) The computer alarms our storage manager 24 hours a day, in case something is wrong. At the photo you see one of our consoles. All measurements during the season are saved to disk and can be produced on screen or printout in graphic lay out. In this way we can track the climate history of our bulbs. Delivery
Before the bulbs are delivered the administration is updated. This means that the trays are labelled and the transport papers are printed. This process is automated off course by special nursery software. (For further information: www.chip.nl.) The same software takes care of the administration, for example the production, usage registration of minerals and fertiliser, planting information, etc.
At the nursery we have our own transportation. Our truck has a daily delivery route between our nursery, the export and our customers during season. Postscript
A good nursery has a broad selection of flowerbulbs, which can be subdivided into summer and winter bulbs. The summer bulbs include tulips, daffodils and hyacinths. These are planted in the fall and harvested in early summer. The export of summer bulbs then starts in early July and runs through September. Winter bulbs, such as Zantedeschias, dahlias and gladioli, are planted in the spring and harvested in the fall (October through December). These bulbs are available for export from December through February. |
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Last Updated on Friday, 30 July 2010 14:42 |
