At a New Hampshire greenhouse, ‘no one touches anything’

The owners of a one-acre greenhouse in London, NH, rely entirely on automation to reduce the risk of contaminating the greens that go into its packages of lettuce blends, says Produce Retailer. “From seeding to harvest to packaging, no one touches anything” at lef Farms, which sold its first order in January.

Gutters filled with peat moss are seeded by machine and fed by conveyor into the greenhouse, where they germinate near a heated floor and then are rotated to a higher level while the plants grow. “On day 14, a computer ‘shops’ for the right blend of gutters from the ready-to-harvest product and it’s whisked away to the cold room for packaging,” says Produce Retailer. The gutters pass “through a machine that clips the lettuce, mixes the blends and bags it for sale.”

Sales and marketing manager D.J. Grandmaison says the two biggest challenges in farming are labor and water. Equipment from Green Automation, based in Finland, should assure efficiency, he told the magazine.

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