Customer case study: Maytree Nursery

Customer case study: Maytree Nursery

By mimicking sunlight to encourage plant growth and increase marketable yield, Maytree has been able to improve its overall production rate with the use of Signify lighting and tiered benching from Northern Polytunnels. By using ingenious horticultural technology, Maytree has improved plant yield and growth and revolutionised their production rate. From their own experience, Maytree explains to Fargro how this investment has seen substantial growth for their business and plant production rates. 
 
About Maytree 
Maytree is a close-knit family business that has grown from a small back-garden project to a 4 acre plot stocked with thousands of plants. Growing a range of perennials, shrubs, roses, ornamental trees, fruit trees, fruit bushes, potted and bare-rooted plants. Maytree has been focusing on homegrown to give their product a USP that aligns with consumers as well as for economic reasons. “Quite simply buying stock in to sell on was less economically attractive both at a grower level and for our customer”, Maytree growing their own was a "no brainer". It also safeguards against supply chain issues; this year has been extraordinary but illustrates the point. During the post lockdown surge in ornamental sales, Maytree had a stock of 15000 2l perennials to draw on to meet demand. This lead to customers asking, "How have you got all this stock?" Further to this, homegrown helps to mitigate the uncertainty and any tariffs that may be placed on plants post-BREXIT. says Neil, Growing Manager at Maytree. 

Drive growth and production capacity using a combination of LEDs and tiered benching. 
Maytree invested in two separate LED systems. The first at the cutting bench where the lights were put in place to drive growth and the second on the tiered benching system where the lights allowed Maytree to double their production by building up rather than building out. Building up has proven to be an innovative and effective solution for Maytree. Space is limited so maximising their current structures was key to the success of the project. The tiered system increased production by 100% and was more cost-effective than building an additional polytunnel. The predicted ROI on this investment is one year.  
 
Mimicking sunlight on lower benches  
Building up rather than out does however present an issue that the lower level received very little light, this leads to etiolated growth, stretching and yellowing /darkening of the plants. By installing LEDs with a white, red and blue mix Maytree have mimicked sunlight on the lower tier to ensure consistent high-quality growth.  

Collaboration to reach a solution 
To create effective lighting programmes Fargro and Signify worked alongside Maytree to create a light recipe to achieve the desired outcome and a lighting plan to ensure the correct number of lights were installed to give proper and cost-effective light coverage. Northern Polytunnels supplied the two-tiered benching ensuring it worked within the existing Maytree polytunnel structure. Innovation and integration of technology is a key process at Maytree and is viewed as a continuous project. Going forward if the customer base and demand continues the tiered bench and LED system will be rolled out to a greater area of the nursery.  
 
The only challenge is staffing to manage the increased area of plants grown. Thanks to the use of technology and benching, Maytree have seen their production rates scale to meet the needs of their customers and between increased demand and finding the solutions to aid with plant production and growth, Maytree has been able to successfully improve their production by 100% with the use of Signify lighting and tiered benching.