Greenhouse Grower: Age Of The Cybergrower, The

IN the early 1980s we developed a computer grower network at Michigan State University called the "Spartan Ornamental Network" (SON). In the beginning it contained a buy/sell bulletin board, "ask the expert" section, insect and disease information tips and databases on crop production for bedding and potted plants.

SON was the first floriculture computerized information network. While the information was accurate and the concept had great merit, we had to sell the idea to the industry.

In our first demonstration at a greenhouse, we invited several growers to see what the network could do. The first problem was there was no place to connect the computer to a telephone line, except in the grower's house. We bought 300 feet of phone cable at Radio Shack to connect the computer in the greenhouse to the house phone jack. The response time between our commands to the computer and the appearance on screen was slow, but it worked.

It took us one year to sell 25 subscriptions for $25 each, but it was a start. Many growers told us that there would never be a computer in their greenhouses. Of course, the idea was right, but the timing was five years too early.

I visited Neal Mast, who is my friend and a "good old" Dutch grower in the Grand Rapids area. He had seen my demonstration and he said, "I already have a computer." I was astounded. I said to him, "What do you mean?" He said, "My mother and father gave me a computer when I was born." Since he was born in the late 1920s, I was even more perplexed. Then he pointed to his head and said, "It's between my ears." At that time he was absolutely right. All the information about his crops, greenhouse, sales and his business was in his head.

Adding To The Tool Kit

In the last 20 years, science has provided many innovations that have greatly changed the role of the grower. Computerized environmental controls replaced the need to constantly watch the vents and automated watering systems have greatly reduced the time the grower has to spend with the watering hose.

As for production planning, great tools have been added to the grower's tool kit. They include action plans for crops, computerized production schedules and the ability to use the information for purchasing materials, tracking inventory and monitoring activities related to sales, accounting and financing. The use of predictive models for lilies, chrysanthemums and poinsettias and the understanding of the concept of DIP have given growers the ability to program the computer to regulate the temperature any time, day or night, to control height and time to flower, in many cases to the exact day.

Historically Yoder Brothers trained Gloeckner salesmen to develop action plans for scheduling pot and cut chrysanthemums. When you bought the cuttings, the salesman provided you with a schedule of when to plant and pinch, when other cultural requirements were needed and when the crop would flower. The service greatly improved the growers' success rates in production. It helped make the chrysanthemum the No. 1 pot plant in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Fast Forward

Marshall Goldsmith, who writes for Fast Company magazine, has coined a new word, "feedforward." He says it is better to focus on the future than to try to solve the problems of the past. Using this technique, it might be interesting to try to foresee what the grower of the future will have to be like.

Some people may say that we will get to the point where we won't need a human grower. Instead, a computer will take care of all that is needed to produce the plants - a cybergrower. While that may be a reality some day, I believe that we are a long way from it. Here's why.

Do you know what the cost has been in time, effort and money to develop the hardware and software programs that are presently being used to control all aspects of a greenhouse business?

We have barely scratched the surface of what needs to be programmed into the computer database. Have you ever seen a business where the head grower dies suddenly or leaves the business and all the knowledge he had in the computer in his head goes with him? It is usually a disaster.

One important thing that we must also realize is that growing floriculture crops is both an art and a science. The human computer can sense situations the mechanical computer cannot.

Recently, when I visited a casino in Michigan, I went to get my free lunch at the Players Club, which is run by the casino to learn everything about the player. But guess what? The computer went down. When I asked the person what to do now, his answer was, "We can't do anything." My next question was, "When will it be fixed?" His answer: "I don't know!"

In floriculture, we can't have "I don't know" for an answer. We have to have someone able to respond to any crisis. That's what a human grower can do.

I believe the future grower will be the interface between the researcher and other developers of new knowledge and the commercial application of this new knowledge and technology. These future growers will be the ones who will take the new knowledge and integrate it into production systems that can work in their businesses. They will be the ones who will identify problems early before they become major losses, and they will also play an important part in selecting new varieties, new equipment and, yes, new computers, iPods, cell phones and so on. Having radio frequency identification (RFID) on all products, knowing the inventory on the range and what the distributor stocks will enable them to control their seasonal inventory and reduce the waste factor.

There is no doubt that the grower's role will not be decreased. It will become much more important. And, yes, the computers that their mothers and fathers gave them will be their most valuable assets, not only to them but to their company.

I predict there will be cybergrowers, but they will be human growers who will use computers as extensions of their human computers to direct all aspects of production.

Will Carlson

Senior Editor

will@greenhousegrower.com

About the author: Will Carlson is consultant and retired Michigan State University professor. You can e-mail him at will@greenhousegrower.com.