Nourse Farms, a grower of berry plants, has partnered with Viscon to build an automated laboratory for soft fruit propagation to respond to growing demand for berries.
Viscon develops automation and software solutions to support agricultural processes.
The new ‘highly-automated’ Plant Tissue Culture Lab will reportedly feature advanced automated system to save on labour costs and multi-layer propagation rooms.
“Nourse Farms is focused on delivering the highest-quality plants and our partnership with Viscon promises to support us as we grow—both plants and our operation,” said John Place, CEO, Nourse Farms CEO.
“Tissue culture has been the cornerstone of what we do for decades, so strategic investments in technology and advancements in this part of our operation are not only ideal but necessary.
“We are delighted to work with Viscon to bring state-of-the-art technologies to our new tissue culture lab. We expect that we will see a significant increase in our production and efficiency.”
The automation company has developed a bespoke Tissue Culture Planter for the facility, which Viscon has developed and manufactured in close collaboration with ISO Group.
What’s more, the automated planter will operates within a sterile environment and work by automatically placing explants into fresh media jars.
Viscon explained that this is usually a highly labour-intensive process that can now be automated, with precision and accuracy levels also expected to increase.
Accordingly, the solution should improve efficiency for plant uniformity and contamination reduction to help Nourse Farms produce higher quality berry plants.
The new lab will be located in Whately, Massachusetts, and is currently in the planning and equipment manufacturing phase. It is set to open later this year.
Viscon Group will be exhibiting at Stand 820 at Robotics and Automation Exhibition, where the latest developments in robotics and automated technologies for materials handling will be on show. Register to attend now!
