Bosch Fruits, The Netherlands
HORTURION® HPS System / LED Interlight

Company:
Bosch Fruits is a 1.3 hectare blackberry farm in Berkel en Rodenrijs. The company has been cultivating blackberries since 2017 and started experimenting with supplemental lighting early on.

Challenge:
The challenge was to find a lighting solution that would allow for a year-round blackberry harvest. To do this, a lighting system had to be found that would not emit too much heat for the temperature-sensitive blackberries, but at the same time provide enough light to penetrate the dense plants sufficiently.

Installation:
Ushio (formerly BLV) supplied an HPS TL toplighting system with an output of 150 µmol which remains switched on up to 18 hours a day during the darker period. In addition, several rows of shrubs were additionally equipped with LED IL interlight to test the effectiveness and possible advantages of a hybrid system.

“Wouter has a real entrepreneurial spirit. Shortly after he started growing blackberries under glass, he was already experimenting with additional light. He also liked the theory behind LED, because blackberries cannot tolerate too much heat, but the light must be able to penetrate the dense shrubs well. So he started to equip some test series with Interlight to evaluate the possibilities of a hybrid solution.”

René Polak, Sales Manager Ushio