On Thursday 25 June, the annual Tree Nursery Technology Day will take place at Esri Potcultuur and Boomkwekerij Kennis on Oekelsestraat in Rijsbergen. What once started out as a small-scale gathering focused on mechanical weed control has now grown into a meeting place for tree nursery growers, mechanisation companies and technology developers from the Netherlands and Belgium. Yet, according to co-initiator John Dictus of Boomkwekerij Dictus Hereijgers, the event should above all retain what makes it strong: accessibility, a practical focus and technology developed by growers themselves.

“We may be technology enthusiasts,” laughs Dictus, “but we mainly organise this day because we want to show what is being developed in the industry. Especially when it comes to innovations coming from growers themselves.”

From hoeing competition to Technology Day
The roots of the Tree Nursery Technology Day date back more than ten years. At the time, Dictus won third prize in the Clean Water Innovation Award with a self-developed hoe. That award came with an important condition: the knowledge gained had to be shared with the industry.

“At the time, I was working with Richard Korven,” Dictus explains. “We thought: how are we going to do that? In the end, we simply gathered machines together, invited people and made sure there was coffee. It started that simply.”

According to him, that informal setup is still the strength of the event. No strict trade fair concept, no closed registration environment, but an open technology day where growers can speak directly with each other.

“It is not about everything looking perfect,” he says. “Some machines are still half-finished or not even painted yet. But it is about how they work. That is what matters.”

Innovations that stem from practical problems
It is precisely this practical approach that makes the technology day interesting for many visitors. In addition to mechanisation companies, growers themselves are also explicitly given a stage to show their own solutions. These are often innovations that arise from everyday practical problems within tree cultivation.

“Those are often the best things,” says Dictus. “A grower comes up with something because they run into a problem. Then you see solutions that immediately excite other growers.”

In recent years, the focus was often on mechanical weed control in open field cultivation. But according to Dictus, attention is increasingly shifting towards container cultivation, logistics and labour efficiency.

“Container fields require different solutions,” he explains. “That is something we are increasingly working on as well. What we like is that growers help each other move forward in this.”

For growers, by growers
Although the Tree Nursery Technology Day now attracts visitors from throughout the Netherlands and Belgium, the organisation deliberately wants to avoid becoming a large-scale trade fair. Dictus repeatedly emphasises that the low-threshold character must be maintained.

“You should simply be able to think in the morning: I’ll just drive over there,” he says. “That is why we also do not want any complicated registration systems or barriers.”
According to visitors, the atmosphere is reminiscent of the early years of GrootGroenPlus: accessible, practical and strongly rooted within the industry itself. Organisations such as Treeport Zundert, Compas Agro and other parties from the tree nursery industry are now also involved in this initiative.

According to Dictus, collaboration is essential. “We are competitors, but certainly also colleagues. In the end, here in Northwest Europe we have built up an enormously complete assortment together. We can learn a lot from each other.”

No huge ambitions, just having a good day
When asked what the Tree Nursery Technology Day should eventually grow into, Dictus remains strikingly down-to-earth.

“I want growers to see something here that they can start working with themselves the next day,” he says. “That would make the day a success to me. It does not have to be big, as long as it is relevant.”

Still, he sees that a new generation of growers is becoming increasingly interested in technology, automation and smart mechanisation. That seems to secure the future of the event for now.

“There are plenty of young guys here who are fully into technology,” he concludes. “We really love that.”

The Tree Nursery Technology Day takes place on Thursday 25 June at Esri Potcultuur and Boomkwekerij Kennis on Oekelsestraat in Rijsbergen. During the day, visitors can view various practical demonstrations, machines and innovations from both open field and container cultivation.