RESUME
Position: Horticulturist at Flowerwood Nursery Inc. in Mobile, Ala. and general manager of Plant Development Services Inc. in Loxley, Ala. Executive board president of Horticultural Research Institute and co-director of research at Southern Nursery Association.
Company information: Flowerwood Nursery and allied companies are wholesale nurseries with several sites in Georgia, Florida and Alabama. Production includes growing mostly broadleaf evergreens and groundcovers. The company distributes primarily to markets from Texas to Florida to Maryland.
Plant Development Services Inc. is a research and development company and wholesale nursery, which creates, evaluates, produces, licenses and markets horticulturally improved landscape plants, such as the Encore azaleas.
For more: Plant Development Services Inc., 17325 County Road 68. Loxley, AL 36551; (334) 964-6778; fax (334) 964-6759. For more: Horticultural Research Institute, 1250 I St. N.W., Suite 500, Washington, DC 20005-3922; (202) 789-2900; fax (202) 789-1893. Remote Control Systems Inc., P.O. Box 511, 75 Pennsylvania Ave., Irwin, PA 15642; (724) 864-7100; fax (724) 864-7108; RCSteam@RCSteam.com.

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A. The biggest needs to automate are in the areas that require significant labor inputs. Jobs that deal in quantity and repetition lend themselves to automation. Container movement and handling at wholesale nurseries come to mind first.

For 2 1/2 years the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University has been tackling this job. The prototype of a container handler nicknamed Junior will be capable of putting down, picking up or spacing 45,000 No. 1 cans per day with two people. The research has been funded by NASA, USDA’s Agricultural Research Service and HRI.

For it to be successful, Junior will have to function in outdoor growing areas, in overwintering structures and on a variety of growing surfaces.

A. No. Minor changes like nursery design, overwintering structure design, production surfaces and water distribution systems will be altered. But a nursery will still look like a nursery.

A. Of course. The problem with nursery labor in our current situation is the legality of available labor and cost of available labor. The ample availability of legal and affordable employees exits only in our dreams. Hopefully, as we move more into the era of automation, labor shortages will be eliminated. Our current labor situation has pushed the development of automated systems.

Nurseries should always be in a panic to reduce labor. Excessive labor expenses eat larger shares of resources faster than any other components of production costs by a long shot.

A. For three years we have devoted about 25 percent of the annual grants to mechanization, an approximate total expenditure of $300,000. USDA-ARS matched those dollars and NASA followed by matching that total, so $1.2 million has been invested over this three-year period.

We first tried to identify technology that could quickly and cost-efficiently be adapted to our industry. The Talley Master, a hand-held device to inventory and measure tree caliber, is a result. That product has been licensed by Remote Control Systems Inc. and is available on the market.

Another project near completion is an attachment to extract Nos. 10, 15, 20 and 30 insert containers from socket containers in pot-in-pot production. The device would also aid producers in shipping and distribution centers, garden centers and landscapers in handling large containers.

Junior, which I previously mentioned, is a very complicated work in progress because its task must be done under so many different conditions and on a wide range of surfaces. I hope those who are anxiously anticipating a working machine will be patient. We are into its second year of development and the Robotics Institute needs about that much more time until completion. I’m pleased with the progress to date.

A. Most of the European greenhouse production of potted flower crops is totally automated. The environment under glass is totally controlled. All tasks from propagation, potting, trimming, spacing, grading and packing are accomplished by machinery and computers. Some similar American businesses have adapted these systems.

Because of land scarcity, some woody nurseries in Europe, which are smaller in size, have invested in uniform production surfaces such as concrete and are able to mechanize. Many nurseries producing woody ornamentals in Europe operate much like we do here and generally are less efficient than the U.S. industry because farms are small and roads are narrow and crooked.

The Japanese and New Zealand industries may even be somewhat behind our industry. Remarkably, in my travels I have found that production techniques and procedures are very similar.

Of interest to U.S. growers is that many of the state-of-the-art production facilities in Northern Europe were subsidized by taxpayers. And in Italy, European economic development grants have flowed into their industry to aid them. I don’t think we want that here.

A. I’m amazed to see tobacco at the factory go in unprocessed and come out as cigarettes in packages. The automation and efficiency of the process is unbelievable. Dairy product manufacturing is another example of an agricultural role model. We need the same type of engineers who developed these processes to think about our industry and the tasks we perform.

Wholesale nursery production lends itself to mass production and assembly line manufacturing much better than garden centers, landscape businesses or landscape distribution centers. We must look at their situations separately.

A. I don’t think so. The diversity of climate, product mixes and production techniques will never be eliminated. The management and owners of most nurseries will continue to be innovative and automate for their unique situations. History shows that those innovations get copied and shared and that will continue.

A. If we’re successful with research and development, automated machines will be manufactured. If they’re affordable and useful, you’ll see producers modifying their production habits to accommodate this equipment.

Automatic inventions will come first and nursery modification will follow. Included in those modifications will be adoptions of similar nursery design and container design resulting in more standardized systems.

A. Europe, rightly or wrongly, has standardized, particularly in Northern Europe. We hear that Lowe’s Home Improvement Centers and Wal-Mart are considering adopting the same nursery shipping cart. They certainly have the power to dictate which way a lot of producers will jump. The ‘several movements’ you mention have not gained widespread acceptance.

The idea of anything universal in the United States is unlikely. We’re a big country, diverse in geography and product. I can see major retailers establishing a system using standardizing shipping carts, which they will require. I can see growers cooperating and using one nursery shipping cart. But only if some manufacturer designs and builds the perfect cart will a universal system evolve. That perfect system would include total satisfaction to producers, retailers and be with fail-proof tracking and redistribution procedures -- highly unlikely.

A. I don’t think so. When we finally get a national energy policy and implement a long-term strategy, business will realize that the 2000 and 2001 energy crisis was not normal.

Overriding what hesitancy they might have about automation and the associate cost of energy will be the recognition of longer-term problems and cost associated with labor.