“This type of farming combines IT skills with agricultural acumen and allows us to use 90 percent less water than traditional farming, no chemicals and pesticides”
InGreen is a recently established farming venture in the city of Kelčany (south Moravia, Czechia) that specializes in aquaponics. The two young entrepreneurs behind InGreen, Michal Tesařík and David Rakušan are as excited about the possibilities offered by this farming method as they are concerned about the future of the planet. “This type of farming combines IT skills with agricultural acumen and allows us to use 90 percent less water than traditional farming, no chemicals and pesticides,” says Michal Tesařík.
Being the only company to combine aquaponics with vertical farming in the Czech Republic, InGreen grows over 1,000 pieces of leafy vegetables per month on an area of 6 square meters. They specialize in leafy greens with a special focus on lettuce and various herbs.
As InGreen plans to significantly boost their production area in the short term and set up an automated farm, the company set out to find a lighting expert last year. “It’s very difficult to find a good lighting supplier as customers have an immensely wide range of providers to choose from. We tried many companies and compared their products, and found that Tungsram was the best,” says David Rakušan.
Following several rounds of clarification Tungsram came up with a final lighting design, tailored to the specific needs of the customer. In Green purchased 600 fixed-spectrum Tungsram light bars that were set up on a 350-square meter cultivation area growing lettuce. The lamps are instrumental in helping plants reach a certain, pre-determined weight, shape, taste in a shorter period of time. InGreen has 14 harvesting cycles a year and Tungsram luminaries play a key role in ensuring that the compactness of the plants meets the company’s criteria and that they reach the target weight within a sufficient number of days.
The Budapest-based company also supplied experimental lamps with variable spectrum and lighting recipes to InGreen for the purpose of conducting laboratory research on different lettuce variants and other leafy greens. The research will aid their plans to increase the production area and expand their portfolio of products.
“We have big plans with Tungsram for the future” David Rakušan says
We will come back with the results later. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact our colleague:
Vaclav Kubes
+420 774487870
vaclav.kubes@tungsram.com
Vertical Farm Lightbars