Running a LettUs Grow farm: Grower spotlight on Andrew Worrall, LettUs Grow Farm Manager (2/3)
Running a LettUs Grow farm: Grower spotlight on Andrew Worrall
Andrew is LettUs Grow’s Farm Manager, he manages two of our sites across Bristol and has brought a wealth of knowledge into the company through his previous experience in indoor farming roles across the UK including at Grow Up, Raynor Foods & RootLabs. In this three part interview, we explore what it’s been like to move from animal husbandry to indoor farming, the lessons he’s learned along the way, what it’s like working at LettUs Grow and his advice for those new to indoor growing.
Last week we talked about your history in indoor farming (read the first part of the interview here!). You’ve worked with hydroponics and aquaponics in the past. You use aeroponics now - what sets it apart for you?
We grow using aerosol and our beds don’t contain much water at all. This lets the roots be aerated and really use the oxygen and CO2 levels in the air that we provide them. The difference in quality is great. If you lift up a tray in an aeroponic system you’ll see lush, white, happy roots. The bit that’s making you money is the bit above the roots, so everyone gives a lot of consideration and care into that. However, taking care of the root culture and making sure it’s healthy is what promotes the growth up top, which is also why we see faster growth rates in aeroponics. Because we take care of this root culture, the plants are happy from the start and they don’t have any stress levels - nothing is stunting their growth.
Are there any differences between the farm you run now and the indoor farms you started your journey working in?
This farm is the one I’ve been most proud of. As growers, we’ve been able to work directly with the engineers. This has completely optimised this system to the exact needs of the grower. It’s very unique, I’ve never seen it happen before and I’ve never had the opportunity to work with engineers until now. In that sense, it’s absolutely amazing.
One huge difference from this farm to the last indoor farm I worked on was that it was a bus! That was really a marketing project, to show people that you can have a farm anywhere. I think I’ve always wanted to educate people. I did it when I was doing animal farming and I will continue to do it with indoor farming. It’s important for people to understand that this is a step into the future and we’re going to need to grow some of our food using indoor farming. When I worked at the community farm we’d have parents coming in to say “look at that horse,” when it was a donkey. You see the same thing with disconnection to food and counteracting that is something I’ve always wanted to be a part of. This is something that's exciting about projects like LettUs Grow's container farm, because they really have the potential to bring people closer to how food is grown.
What insights have you been able to pass on to the software & engineering teams?
We have Ostara® which is an amazing software platform for growers to use to help them grow very efficiently. When I started I was blown away by what Ostara is and what it can do for an operator. You don’t have to think of 101 different things because Ostara will do it for you. It will help you keep a track of what’s going on down at the farm, so you can run and maintain the farm efficiently. A lot of my input has revolved around what farm operators need to think about on a day to day basis: what Ostara can do to help that farmer out every day, every week, every month. That might include traceability, how the crop goes through the system, the layout or how you can export data. As important as it is for Ostara to be able to tell you what to do, it’s really important to be able to export that data and understand it.
With the engineers it’s about asking them, what can you do to help make my job faster, easier and more stress-free? When I started the technology was very well optimised from a biological perspective, so I very rarely deal with that. One of the areas I've had the biggest influence is in optimising the space around it: how the operators interact with the equipment, more than how the equipment is interacting with the plants. It’s simply about making an operator’s life easier, whether that be having wider spacing so you can get trolleys down the aisles, or having a prep room that can be cleaned down in less than 30 minutes, so you can do your packing in the same room. It’s about making it really easy for a grower to be able to perform their job within a working day.
How has working on the farm changed from when you started until now? What technology has had the biggest impact?
The technology was already so well optimised, so the biggest changes that have been made are procedural. In farms I’ve worked in before we had benches 19-20ft in the air and you accessed them using an elevated platform. We sometimes had to harvest our crops 20ft in the air into a bucket. At LettUs Grow, everything is no higher than a step high so it’s always really easy to access and to maintain. Since we have the preparation room, we don’t harvest in the grow room. This is a massive positive - the grow room should always be only used for growing, not any practice. This way we have better control of the environment, for hygiene reasons, or also to limit pests. I started off harvesting with scissors but now I do most of my harvesting with a machete. It sounds scary, but it’s very fast and it makes it very easy! It’s actually something which happens in traditional farming. If you look at field farming a lot of harvests happen with a machete, so you’re taking old practises and bringing them into an indoor environment.
What’s a typical day for you down at the farm?
On a typical day we start by doing a crop walk. We spend a lot of time doing that because our farm is for Research & Development, so it’s really important to have an understanding of what's going on with the crops - whereas in production you’ve got different priorities. We then look at our growing calendar and, depending on the day, we could be seeding, germinating or harvesting. We heavily record crop data from the seeding process and when we harvest we then record the yield per tray into Ostara. We can then export that information and understand how well the crop has grown or where we need to see improvement. It’s a nice working environment because it’s more about understanding how the salad is growing; the work we’re doing here is going to help our customers not have to do that work themselves. They can start a farm and they can get growing straight away, with none of the stress of crop development. They can open up Ostara and it’s already there and ready to go. It’s rewarding to know that the work we’re putting in now will help a farmer down the line.
What’s your favourite thing to grow?
Pea shoots! I’ve spent many months optimising and growing pea shoots. It was my first task and now I’ve grown many different varieties. It’s a very satisfying crop to grow. There are lots of tweaks you can make to optimise how it grows so it was really good to dissect that crop and understand everything it needs.
Join us next week for the final part of our conversation with Andy, where he shares his thoughts on the future of the industry and advice for new vertical farmers! If you want to start a conversation with our business development team about how you can get into vertical farming, then get in touch here.