Biosolutions in 2024 (Part One) ft. Koppert’s Jeremy Webber

[Bill Caulkins]
Greetings, Greenhouse People. We're back at it with another episode of Tech on Demand, brought to you by the fine folks at GrowerTalks Magazine. If you don't receive GrowerTalks and Green Profit every month, it's time to head over to growertalks.com and subscribe. The magazine's been a pillar of the industry for more than 75 years, and it's about time you join the club. And speaking of subscribing, be sure to subscribe to the Tech on Demand podcast on your favorite podcast app. We're on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Odyssey, and more.

If you have an extra minute to leave us a positive review, that would be awesome. Every little bit helps our algorithms and allows us to reach more greenhouse professionals. I'm your host Bill Caulkins, and this is going to be a two-part episode focused on biocontrols, bios, biologicals, beneficials, or however you want to refer to biosolutions for the horticulture industry.

And it's the first in a series of podcasts spinning off from the 2024 GrowerTalks Biosolutions Guide, which is a special supplement. You'll find a link to the guide in the show notes. My guest for the next two episodes is Jeremy Webber, crop team manager at Koppert, a Dutch company that's been innovating in the biosolutions space for more than 50 years.

Koppert is a global market leader specializing in biological crop protection, and Jeremy's been with the company for almost 15 years and is well-versed in all things biosolutions and an excellent speaker, so I assure you, this'll be a fun, dynamic dialogue discussing why growers are seeking biocontrol strategies more and more, the best gateway pests and bios to start with, how to approach the conventional versus bio cost discussion, SOPs for a few different common biocontrol scenarios and pests, what every grower should do on Fridays before leaving the greenhouse, why nematodes always work on fungus gnats, eyeless, dumb, predatory mites, and much, much more.

But before we get started, let me run through Jeremy's bio because it'll give you some insight into why I was so excited to hear what he had to say about such a wide range of topics. Jeremy entered the northeastern nursery industry in 2003, ultimately leading production efforts as a director at Sunny Border Nurseries in Berlin, Connecticut. He's unsure how many plants he's grown or sold, however, he estimates he's killed at least a million and he's good at learning from his mistakes.

For the last 13 years, Jeremy has been hyper-focused on the intersection of growers and plant pests and diseases, working for Koppert U.S. He manages the cannabis and ornamental crop team, with 12 consultants located throughout the country. So without further ado, let's get into part one with Jeremy Webber from Koppert. Jeremy, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

[Jeremy Webber]
I'm really stoked to be here. It's going to be fun.

[Bill Caulkins]
For sure. And you have so much experience, whether it's with biocontrols or in the greenhouse that I think this conversation should be excellent. We'll probably go in all sorts of different directions, but why don't I start with what's kind of your expected first question, which is, tell me a little bit about Koppert as a company, how the company started, some of the products or, I guess, specialties of Koppert and a little bit about how the company evolved in terms of the crops or markets that you work in.

[Jeremy Webber]
OK, so that's about a 20 minute answer, I'll try to keep it concise. Sounds good. Yeah, we started over 50 years ago.

So Jan Koppert was a was a cute grower over in the Netherlands and he was getting sick from spraying spider mites. So he he heard about this predatory mite and went and found one from a research station. And, you know, it actually started to work and it kind of blew his mind.

And he was, you know, going, all right, I'm going to produce these for myself. But I could I could probably keep going. So we were the first company to commercialize biocontrol.

We began the industry, so to speak. And he was selling Persimilis reared on his cucumber leaves and paper bags to his neighbors and his friends that were all growers, you know, so that that was really where it started. And then his two sons, Peter and Paul, and then his nephew, Henry, grew up in the greenhouse and then they took the company and really made it into what everybody knows Koppert is today.

So, you know, in the Netherlands, to to those of us that have been over there, it's it's easy to see why that's where the industry work. There's it's a whole United States state of greenhouse. And and that that industry greenhouse tomatoes, greenhouse peppers are really where everything found its initial foothold for the first couple of decades.

You know, and that's that's a ton of just the bio industry's history is right there in the Westland and and in those really just those three crops. And then the next stuff to really get added were the the cut flower industry, where you've got. Can you imagine trying to grow a Gerbera for three years or a rose for seven to 10 years, you know, in one of these greenhouses?

And and that was the next part was like, man, we really the pesticides aren't working. We need something else. So that was really the the advent of ornamental biocontrols.

We're in the cut flower greenhouses over there. And and then as the Dutch are want to do, they're not just their products are exported, but so are their ideas and horticulture. So we found a lot of initial foothold where a lot of those guys actually immigrated, which was South Southeastern Canada and Ontario there.

And that was about the time that I started to come onto the scene to some degree or another. And we were really just starting to figure out what biocontrols looked like in ornamentals at that time. And still to this day, I'll always credit most of my initial successes to to being able to lean on our Koppert Canadian crew, where they were doing a lot of that initial groundwork and going from cut flowers.

How do we make this work in hanging baskets? And that was, you know, that started 15, 17, 18 years ago.

[Bill Caulkins]
OK, and that that's interesting, because when you think about, you know, countries that lead in sustainable production biocontrols, I do think of Netherlands and Canada. And then it's slowly making its way through through the US. But that's interesting that Koppert sort of started that market and and drove it through those those countries.

[Jeremy Webber]
Yeah. And I mean that, you know, there there were, you know, certainly some others that popped up right after us. So so we've certainly got some some some competition that developed very quickly there.

But regardless, you know, that that that Canadian influence for us here in the US, at least for me personally, has been a been a huge help because they they had to trailblaze that. And, you know, Koppert Canada walk so that Jeremy could run. I love it.

You know, a lot of hard learned lessons that I was able to fall back on there and just had to trust somebody when I started. And those guys were were a great resource.

[Bill Caulkins]
Makes sense. Makes sense. How about Koppert's overarching mission?

I know we've talked a little bit about this. I think it's it's certainly admirable and a great kind of North Star to direct yourself toward. Tell us what Koppert's overarching mission is and why it's so important to the company.

[Jeremy Webber]
100 percent sustainable global agriculture. And that's not I don't think any of us believe that that's actually achievable. You know, I think pinning down what the heck sustainable even means is that's a whole other podcaster or four.

But, you know, really what we're what we're trying to do is say, all right, that's the North Star. That's the lens that we make all of our major decisions through. And as long as that's our goal, then then then we're going to be the company that we want to be.

And we're going to be making the decisions and the impacts globally that we're trying to make. So that that's a huge part of it for us is just saying, look, how do we make what we're eating, what we're putting into our houses for decorations, in some cases, what we're smoking or eating or however you want to look at that, too. How do we make that as safe as it possibly can be for us?

[Bill Caulkins]
And if you had to throw a crazy number out there, where are we at? What percent of global agriculture is sustainable?

[Jeremy Webber]
I don't I don't know the answer to that question. I'm not even qualified to make a guess on that one. We are working on that.

We do have a team of people that are that are trying to quantify what our global footprint is, like what we've actually been able to do for the planet.

[Bill Caulkins]
Right.

[Jeremy Webber]
In the 56, 57 years, whatever it's been that we've been here, because that is something that we're we're we're hearing that from clients. Right. You know, are not just how do you measure success?

There's a billion different ways to do that. But there's so many additional benefits to using this sort of approach. And how can we put all that together?

Because it's very nebulous. It's hard to pin down. So that's something we're actively working on, trying to come up with something, because it's not easy to definitively say that.

[Bill Caulkins]
I didn't think you were going to give me a percentage. I just figured I'd throw it out there.

[Jeremy Webber]
I'd like to say I don't know as often as possible, because often I say I do know a good bit. And it's a nice contrast.

[Bill Caulkins]
Well, I've got here I've got I've got one that you can definitely say I know, too, because it's more about you and your approach. So we've talked a little bit about some of the formalities, core values of Koppert. I'm interested why you feel ornamentals growers should be moving toward a bio based approach to production.

And one of the you already said the word. I think it's an important word in this conversation is trust. And when you work with a biocontrol supplier advisor, anyone in that role, a lot of it is about is about trust, like any business relationship.

But why do you think ornamentals growers should be exploring or moving production into a bio solutions realm?

[Jeremy Webber]
I mean, I think there's a lot of reasons. And that's the that's that's why we're seeing the the industry growing the way that it is. It's not just one thing.

We didn't just make pesticides illegal when you guys have to talk. You know, there's a lot of things going on there. But, you know, coming at it rather selfishly, it's it's worker safety.

And it's going, OK, I was I was in the greenhouse for a little over a decade. And prior to that, I was a landscaper. I've been around pesticides a lot longer than I've been in the greenhouse.

And it didn't bother me. And then one day it did. You know, and I went, oh, man, I need to go get this freckle looked at.

And I need to go get that freckle looked at. And man, my asthma has been crazy lately, you know. And that's really what got the wheels turning for me.

And then and then also I'm sprang by fenthrone on shore flies, and they're not dying at max label rate, you know, and I'm like, maybe now it's time. And, you know, I kind of always look at things through that lens of going, OK, how can the the 15 or 20 people that are working in this range, how can we make it safer for them and more enjoyable for them to be at work every day? You know, and then there's all these other environmental things after that.

And, you know, you name it. But, man, if I can just help people not be around acetate, pyrethroids, opiates in general, I guess carbamates, you know, like to me, that's a. That's a that's a really worthwhile career goal, you know, I'm our work is directly, directly making people's lives better and more safe.

And, you know, not many people are blessed enough to be able to have an impact with what they do each day to to me to that level. So that's always what I'm shooting for.

[Bill Caulkins]
Very, very, very true. I think our industry has a responsibility in that regard, too. We have a lot of a lot of workers in greenhouses and the safety has to be of utmost concern and a priority for every operation.

Talk a little bit about the trust element of working with a biocontrols partner or any partner.

[Jeremy Webber]
We talked about that a little bit yesterday, and it really got me thinking about it more. And it's it's it's so far beyond that. It's a life skill, you know, and it's a you don't have to to be able to to trust people there.

There are a lot of people that I don't think are just wired that way or don't want to be, you know, and that's fine. But, you know, when. Really took over more of a management role over the last five, six years.

And, you know, to me, this came back to when I'm onboarding a new employee. We're bringing somebody new onto the team and going, look, you've never done any of this, really, you know, like you're you're. It's easy for me to recommend an application of endeavor because I know it kills aphids in about four days or whatever, you know, I've done it a million times personally and I've seen it.

Sooner or later, you're going to have to come in here and tell somebody to do something that you've never, ever done before. So to me, it really brought it back to that level personally with me where it's like, yeah, you know, I always have to try to to convince our our new hires that we're not full of crap. I need to take this SOP that we've written over the last 20 years and go tell this to a client and trust that it's going to work.

[Bill Caulkins]
Right.

[Jeremy Webber]
You have to believe in that. And the same thing applies for the client and the advisor relationship where, you know, you really have to go into that and say, look, I don't know what I'm doing here. And you have to be comfortable saying that and meeting it.

And then, but I do trust you. Where do we start? How can you how can we ease into this together so that I can still kind of sleep at night for a little bit and I don't have to worry about my plants being thrown away?

You know, so that that's really the key, I think, is for anyone that has not done this yet that wants to get into it, you have to find an advisor that you trust. I would love for that to be someone from my team or from my company in general. But there's a lot of other people out there and we're obviously not going to be a perfect fit for everyone.

So I think that's the main thing, because it is so nuanced. If you could put this on a spreadsheet, then I don't have a job and I'm not paying for my mortgage for the last 15 years doing it. And we wouldn't have 100 people in the U.S. doing it either. You know, so it's it's it requires that specialist touch to some degree or another. And and you're not going to be as successful as you could be. Otherwise, you know, if you're just going in on your own and forging your own path and all right, sweet, that that obviously is a path that a lot of people like.

But it's going to take you longer. You're going to fall on some avoidable pitfalls. And I think finding that person that you're really able to connect with, that you trust and, you know, helps you deliver results.

Personally, for me, that's mission critical.

[Bill Caulkins]
And then so a little bit about your journey to why you feel it's important and in your years in a greenhouse and then working with growers around the world on these products. How about let's look at this question in a little bit different angle. You've like I said, you've been in Koppert a long time.

You've worked with a lot of growers of all operations of all sizes. Why are the sessions at trade shows? And if the listeners are listening in real time, we've got cultivate coming up in less than a week.

And there's a lot of sessions on biocontrol strategies and conventional chemical strategies. But why are those sessions at industry events always packed? And why are growers?

Why is that barrier kind of coming down and growers are looking at bio solutions, you know, with sort of a hunger these days?

[Jeremy Webber]
I mean, I think time normalizes things, you know, and coming into this 15 years ago ish into that space. It's still very I mean, and to an extent, it still is viewed as a hippie thing or a thing. And, you know, with each passing year that that gets a little less prevalent, you know, and it's I can never tell if it's if logarithmic is the right word, but it's really I think it's a logarithmic growth scale where, you know, where, okay, it's really possible that you're a grower and out of your friends group of three or four other growers, one or two of three or maybe all of you have had success with that. You know, when 10 or 12 years ago, it was a handful of people that probably half the industry thought were wing nuts. You know, and I say probably I have a lot of respect for the original pioneers that did all this stuff on their own.

It took more guts than I had. I'll put it that way, you know, so I definitely respect it. But, you know, I think at this point, it's just normal, you know, you can come by and talk to us at our booth and not be embarrassed if somebody walks by and sees you talking to us, you know, and it's just it's time.

The other thing, too, is we've gotten better as an industry. We're not throwing stuff at the wall anymore to see what sticks. And I don't think for my company, I can say as a whole, we're not good at throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, you know, we'll do a very dedicated trial on something that we don't know what, you know, if we've got a new thing on a new thing, and we don't know how it works, we're not just going to be like, yeah, put this in every week, it'll probably happen.

You know, we're pretty good at it's saying we don't know things when we don't know them. But 10, 15 years ago, there's a lot of stuff we didn't know about ornamental production.

[Bill Caulkins]
Right.

[Jeremy Webber]
How difficult aphids were going to be. Aphids are really difficult in ornamentals and anyone that tells you otherwise is selling you something. Unless you're using Ricar, you know, but in general, it's, I think, just time and experience.

[Bill Caulkins]
Well, and I do think that, like you said, the stigma of trying different bioproducts is almost gone. I mean, and you're right, a lot of growers work in peer groups, and whether they're looking at new LED lights, or they're looking at biocontrols, there's someone in that peer group who's tried it and has successes to talk about or failures to share. I think you're absolutely right on that.

There is a lot of new technology coming into our industry, and growers are looking to each other to figure out, you know, who's tried what and what's worked. Then they're off searching for more information and working with companies like Koppert who have expertise in this and not doing as much trial and error, probably.

[Jeremy Webber]
Yeah, I mean, you know, 10, 12 years ago, you'd be hard-pressed to find a major greenhouse in the United States that was doing more than just nematodes. You really would have had to look, and now it's completely the inverse of that, where you can't walk into a major greenhouse operation and not find a biocontrol program to some degree, and in a lot of cases, it is darn near maxed out.

[Bill Caulkins]
Right. I'm starting to see head IPM managers from huge greenhouses doing the sessions at trade shows. They're the ones that are talking about the strategies, whereas five, six, seven years ago, it was always companies like you guys who had the experts up there talking, and now it's coming from the growers as well, which is exciting because I think it just shows a level of knowledge and experience that's, I mean, that's a lot of times how we learn in our industry.

[Jeremy Webber]
And I'd much rather have one of our growers doing the talk than me. Right. Regardless of whether or not I'm a consultant or a salesperson, I'm a consultant first and foremost, or I'm never going to be a salesperson.

Yeah. We have to operate on, you know, in that level, I'll always be perceived as a salesperson.

[Bill Caulkins]
Sure.

[Jeremy Webber]
You know, by people that don't know me anyway. You know, it's like, oh, that guy sells bugs. Um, yeah, on paper, I guess I kind of do, you know, but if we just sell bugs to sell bugs, we don't do it for very long.

[Bill Caulkins]
Exactly.

[Jeremy Webber]
And, uh, you know, for me, you know, converting as many people as possible to this is always the goal. So it's, it's way better for me to just shut up, stand in the back and, uh, and let a grower do the selling instead of me.

[Bill Caulkins]
Well, and getting to that point, uh, I, I personally know just enough about really horticulture and production in general, but even the bios, um, just enough to be dangerous. I've been really digging deep into it the last few years, um, and talking to a lot of growers. And when I do that, I hear a lot of questions.

So I'm going to throw a few at them through a few of them at you, if that's cool. And just see how, because I'm sure none of these are new to you. You've heard these questions from growers in the past.

So you good with some, some rapid fire questions?

[Jeremy Webber]
I'll just qualify it with the, uh, the devils in the details. So if you're, if your question's not specific, I'm going to hammer you until it is.

[Bill Caulkins]
Well, that can get ugly because I don't know enough to probably get that specific, but I'm going to, I'm going to try. I hear a lot about growers who, who will say, I have a bio program, but when things really get out of control or infestations get so high, I've got to go to the conventional chemistries to knock it down. Um, cause bios need to be established over time, which, which are response to that.

[Jeremy Webber]
I can pick that apart about 10 different ways. So, um, it depends on the crop, right? So if we're, if we're truly talking ornamentals here, we have the widest range of, uh, active ingredients of any developed country on the planet.

Um, you've got a lot of options and a lot of those are relatively new. Uh, the stuff invented by my granddad's generation, we want to keep those out of the equation, but anything that came out in the last 10 or 15 years, there's a good chance that we can throw that into the system at some point to keep the bio costs lower than there would be. Otherwise, we're not trying to grow a pansy organically here.

We're just trying to reduce risk to workers and give you a solution that lasts forever where, yeah, what if, you know, this foray stops working or whatever? Yeah. Who cares where you can go to bed at night knowing that you've got a solution that lasts indefinitely on your poinsettias, for instance.

So, you know, can we mix pesticides with that all the time? You know, and, and I think that's a really healthy way to look at it in ornamentals is do we want to do routine pesticide applications of a rotation of insecticides? No, your plants hate that.

They don't want it. They'll grow better without a routine weekly application of an insecticide. Let's put some bugs in there to keep you below a given threshold, but let's not put so many in there that you break the bank trying to stay below that threshold all the time.

Let's say, hey, yeah, there's this one peak week where I do fog the house with ricar for aphids or Altus or mainspring, or I do a drench in mainspring. There's all kinds of stuff that we can use with this. And, you know, for me, that's why ornamentals are so much fun is there's a billion ways to skin the cat.

And again, you can't, you know, no one's been able to replace those with a PDF or a flow chart yet. Because everybody goes into this with, you know, I hate mainspring. It's too expensive.

Or neonics are fine. I don't give a whatever, you know, and you never know what you're going to run into. So, you know, you talk to people and they're like, they give you that set of rules that are on the table and then you just help them put that puzzle together.

And pesticides are frequently a part of that.

[Bill Caulkins]
Makes sense. It's sort of a combined approach. And like you said, keep it below a threshold.

You know, you don't want to come in week after week with a pesticide application when you can, you know, certainly work on those populations with something else that's safer for your workers. No REI, that kind of thing.

[Jeremy Webber]
And I think, you know, the devil's in the details. So, you know, routine biopesticide applications, huge fan. You know, for me, that's been a huge thing.

Sort of another topic. But, you know, I don't want to say all pesticide applications are bad. I traffic in living solutions and I do not have a problem with repeatedly applying fungi and bacteria.

Those things actually seem to do a lot of good for the crop versus, yeah, you know, I'm routinely applying an EC based product. Well, your NGI's are going to hate you. You'll probably ship them, but you're going to ship them and it's smaller than you, you know, and that's really where this starts to get a little, a lot more fun.

Right. When you see guys go, is it normal for me to finish two weeks before? How many times are you spraying?

You know, twice a week. Yeah, that's totally normal.

[Bill Caulkins]
Yeah.

[Jeremy Webber]
You know, and it's, hey, by the way, I had to use more PGRs this year. Thanks, dude. Got that one before too.

[Bill Caulkins]
Right.

[Jeremy Webber]
Well, you weren't spraying an EC once or twice a week.

[Bill Caulkins]
Yeah. And something that you said when we were talking leading up to this discussion was that if there is an infestation that's to that level, then something bigger is going on, right? There's a problem with your protocol and that's probably something to get to the bottom of before you even try to figure out how to knock it all down.

[Jeremy Webber]
Yeah. And that goes back to another point that I had from your original question was, you know, about establishment and establishment is a, is a, in a lot of cases. And again, like there, there, there are so many different scenarios here that you could pick apart what I'm saying.

So like, don't, but you know, in general, one of the things that I like to impress on people in ornamentals is that establishment is bad. Now, if you're running banker plants that, you know, we don't really recommend bankers because they're, they're too variable in how they, how they perform, but there are people that have made them work and it is a lot of work to do that. But the people that have made them work kudos because it's hard to pull that off.

But okay. And that is, and that, in that case, establishment's great. You're establishing on a non-targeted pest species.

But if you are establishing predatory mites in a crop of ornamentals without supplementary feeding, you're feeding them pests and you have enough to completely ruin your crop. So what we want are, are really limited little tiny pockets of, of establishment maybe where, you know, Swirskii is in this crop of potted Gerbera. They eat a couple of thrips.

You get a, you get a, a little hotspot that was going to develop. And instead Swirskii developed on that hotspot, but it's not widespread and it didn't last for two months.

[Bill Caulkins]
Okay.

[Jeremy Webber]
If we have widespread development, especially if predatory mites in your crop, you're firing us.

[Bill Caulkins]
Okay. Bring your crop. The pests are there because you're not eliminating pests.

You're. Exactly. You're eating mites on pests.

[Jeremy Webber]
And, and that's really this, you know, it's, it's everything in life is managing expectations, but this is, this is one of those critical ones where it's like, look, we're not trying to establish some hippie dippy commune in your crop. We're trying to flood it and bring a shotgun to a knife fight. And when one little thing starts, there's 15 emaciated near death predators that have not had anything to eat in their entire life.

And they just squash it immediately. And it's over before you ever knew it happened. Okay.

That's how you produce an ornamental crop with bios, with crystal clean foliage. You know, if you, if you want to develop a bunch of bugs in there, well, you're gonna have to have a lot of food. And, you know.

[Bill Caulkins]
That's what we're trying to avoid.

[Jeremy Webber]
Have fun with that. Yeah.

[Bill Caulkins]
Right.

[Jeremy Webber]
So that, that's really the, the mindset that I like to establish there is 99% of what you buy from us, hopefully dies of starvation. Got it. But then again, 99% of the pesticides you were applying went on the foliage of the ground and did nothing because there wasn't a target form either.

It's just as inefficient as preventively spraying pesticides onto a mostly clean crop.

[Bill Caulkins]
Okay. That makes sense. I've never heard it explained that way.

That, that is very clear to me. And I think that's something that the listeners will understand as well.

[Jeremy Webber]
Well, if your cut flowers are fun, because you don't really care what the leaves look like, you do to the extent that you want the plant to be healthy and produce stems. But if you've got some leaf miner tunneling and a Gerbera, it's not the end of the world. But then you get the same question of, well, why can't I use Diglyphus in my potted Gerberas?

Because it actually parasitizes the bug after it's made tunnels. Yeah, so you're going to have tunnels in your crop and you're going to have to be picking leaves. Oh, by the way, you can't spray anything around this bug ever, or it dies and you're not going to ship the crop, so you got to spray something for leaf miner. Sorry.

[Bill Caulkins]
OK, No, I think but that that's what's really fun. When you get into that scenario where the the leaves don't matter as much, then then you can start, you can start to relax a little bit. But you know, when it's a potted crop, you've really got to go crazy, right? And Speaking of managing expectations, what about cost because of course obviously this is going to come up in most discussions about anything that you're using in production and applying. I mean we're not working on huge margins in our industry. So how do you compare conventional chemistries and bio based? Approaches. And I know again, that's probably not a nuanced question, but it's gotta be one you've heard before. An insurance, not apples to apples when you're comparing something that you've done traditionally versus a new approach, but cost is always a consideration. What do you, what do you, what do you discuss with growers when you have that, that meeting and that question comes up?

[Jeremy Webber]
Well, I mean, expensive is different for everyone. And I think that's the the first thing that we want to pin down is go, we'll. What do you mean by expensive? And because in in this sounds like some salesman Jedi mind trick BS. I know that. But the answers that we get to this question reinforce while we ask it. You know, because you'll find out that you pitched. You know, a crazy expensive, you know, 100 and something $1000 poinsettias program to a grower and you're like, this is insane, Mike. Mm-hmm. And they're like. It without thinking about it, I spent 50,000 on PP. Up last year and I don't have to do it this year yeah Oh my God, who's ever dropped 50K at gamblers Well, people do and I had no idea that that was even the thing you know so there so many of these times when we asked that and go. Well, what's your budget for the crop? Yeah, look, if it's $2000 and my solution is $10,000. The $2000 solution. I think that makes perfect sense, assuming it works and. You're happy with it, but most of the time when we're talking to people. They're spending $10,000 and they're. With what they're getting for $10,000. And we're gonna go in there, for example, and say I'm pretty sure we can do a heck of a lot better than that for 11.

You know, and, and it's close, you know, we, we can't, we can't, the industry can't explode the way it has over the last six or seven years. If we're that far out of whack.

[Bill Caulkins]
Sure, You know, and, and I think that's a really great way to. To put a really fine point on it is to say look ornamentals as a as a as a category are exploding in bio for with just the entire bio solutions industry. It's not because. Or twice the cost of what you're doing already, right? No. And then there's the other costs. Yeah, yeah. And then there's other costs that that factor in. We talked yesterday when we were planning for this about the cost of for the, I guess. The value of reducing an REI or the value of, I mean value of work or safety alone, you really can't even put a number on it. But there's a lot more that that factors into the overall cost of a, of a program than just, you know, what is that bottle of chemical cost and what is this, you know, package?

[Jeremy Webber]

Cost there, there are some cases, poinsettias are a great example where we say look you're, you're probably spending X amount per acre we can, we can probably tie that and you won't have REI, you know, or, or whatever. So there, there, there are certain cases where we can do the apples to apples line item cost comparison and. And it's close enough to where everybody's like, OK, sweet, let's try, you know? And then there are other cases where we're talking about this little bit yesterday with like stock plants. You really have a very clear way of measuring how happy that plant is. IPods are my favorite I post doc is just. Made for bias and it's and it's really crazy to see. Oh yeah, we're spraying twice a week all of last year, but this year with your program, we increased our cutting production by 76%. You know, and you're like, OK, well, what was that worth? How many greenhouses did you need to build to create that using your old system? What did, what did this approach for? Probably about the same cost. What did you get from it? I no ones really marketing it yet either, but like why aren't we really aggressively and we've got a couple guys that we work with that you know put a postcard in every box of flats they ship, which I think is awesome. But you know, at the end of the day, you can, you can market this to end users, you can market this to even from wholesaler to wholesaler, you know, and, and you can recoup some of that cost there as well. Well, mm-hmm. REI is in a prop house. What is the cost? Not what are you saving by not having any in your business season. No, it's true. And you know, one of the better examples, we had a guy that had three, three shift a day loading dock all spring, 24 hour day loading dock and a whole buff, you know, 40,000 feet of basket. Mm-hmm. We did Kelly's and pet showers. If it's for four years, wow. Wow. Because it can drip. Yeah. So, yeah, we, I'm like, so the worst crop in there. Let's just see if we can do it. We we never charged him. That was a trial. That was not a demo. That was a or something at the wall here and see if it works. And it. Well, we brought a shotgun to a knife fight, all right. And it worked very well.

[Bill Caulkins]

Well, I think that anytime you're having a cost discussion, you have to try to, to explain all the different things that that add into that. And it's not, I'm sure it's a challenge. I'm sure that that you and your team, you know, you've got experience overcoming that barrier, but I'm sure it's something that you that you guys. Deal with all the time and I'm sure that you have plenty of examples to to to show your customers and growers why, why these solutions make sense.

[Jeremy Webber]

Yeah, it was it was a lot, you know that that was where the trust came in a couple, you know, a couple years in was going right. I trust that. This, uh, this Dutch guy, this Canadian guy that I'm leaning on for all this information is correct. And you know, am I as convincing when I'm not? When I'm 99.9% sure? Apparently not. You know now. I think that's a benefit of working with, with any seasoned veteran or veteran team at this point, right, Is that this is all we do like to, to an extent I can, I can walk into a greenhouse and and in terms of tests, we very definitely see the future. Mm-hmm. That's what you're paying for. When you're working with a service like us or any of the other guys is you want somebody that can walk in there and in five seconds go. Do this and and then watch for this in two weeks. Yeah, This is where you're at. This is where you can be. Yeah, exactly. You know, and it's. To me, it seems extremely easy, but I forgot I don't have to deal with all the other stuff I had to deal with as a grower. I just have to think about breaking throats, life cycles all day, right, You know, and I only. I did that for five years. It was all I thought about. Yeah, I can do it. My sleep. Yeah, you know, but I don't have to think about fertility mixtures. I. Have to change the SEAL kid on a Dosatron in 14 years. You know, like there's there's all this other stuff that goes into that grower position and and I think that's really the the value that we bring is going look, if you want to offload this on to us. You can, right. If you don't, that's fine too. But, but we can really back you up about a high level of support there and and say, well, do do this, this, this and this. It's on you guys to execute and. Based on what you told me your goals are and what tools we have in the toolbox to play with, you're gonna be a very happy person in five weeks, or next or tomorrow or whatever that is. Umm, and that's, you know, I guess what what being hyper focus gives you.

RESOURCES:

2024 GrowerTalks Biosolutions Guide: https://www.growertalks.com/pdf/BioSolutions_Guide_0624.pdf

Koppert U.S.: https://www.koppertus.com/

Koppert Consultants & Locations: https://www.koppertus.com/about-koppert/koppert-consultants-and-locations/

Koppert Crop Protection Products: https://www.koppertus.com/crop-protection/