Finland
May 13, 2013
Holmen Skog installed 2100 units of Valoya Ltd's LED lights to its fully automated tree nursery in Friggesund, Sweden. The newest part of the nursery is a multilayer growing unit with 12 layers and it sole source of light is Valoya's LED lights.
Holmen Skog, a major Swedish forestry company, cultivates 32 million tree seedlings annually to reforest its forests. Most of its tree seedlings come from one of its two own nurseries. The nursery in Friggesund has been rebuilt to become a state-of-the-art nursery with year round growing in a multi-layer growing environment and automated transplantation and quality control as well as cold storage.
Use of artificial light is critical for the cultivation of tree seedlings. To ensure high quality plants from this process, Holmen selected Valoya's products after a rigorous testing process of different options. Valoya's LEDs, together with the selected substrates and growing protocols, provide high quality plants, with strong roots and full cold hardiness.
The new process enables Holmen Skog to have fully controlled growth, year-round and a 100-fold increase in productivity per area.
Roger Larm, Head of the Friggesund Nursery comments: "Our new nursery brings the nursery business and technology into the 21st century. We have worked hard to achieve the high productivity by testing different technologies, developing growth protocols and automating the process. This is a continuation of the centuries' long tradition and know-how forestry of Holmen Skog. Valoya LED's were the best solution here to reach our goals."
Valoya CEO, Lars Aikala comments; "This is a very important step, not only for tree seedlings, but for horticulture in general. Holmen Skog's new multi-layer growing facility is unique and is setting the industry standard in capacity and automation as well as illumination. We are very happy that Holmen selected our wide spectrum technology over traditional fluorescent tubes and LEDs and other conventional light sources"
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