Category: Projects

Soft Fruit Grower in Perthshire

Andrew Barrie owns and runs a significant soft fruit – both raspberries and strawberries – operation near the picturesque Vale of Strathmore in Perthshire, near the towns of Couper Angus and Blairgowrie. Colbeggie Farm takes pride in offering only the highest quality fruits which all goes to the supermarkets.

Andrew also takes great pride in his team and wanted to invest in upgrading the water supply to the staff accommodation for use in their showers, kitchens and general areas.

Following a site visit, Ripple Aquaplast’s technical team designed, supplied, installed and commissioned a new potable water supply by linking a borehole. 50,000 litre covered water storage tanks to WRAS approval, a twin variable speed pump set to supply 6m³/h of drinking water to the suite. Further expansion is planned in the coming months.

New Farm Produce Install Eighth Aquaplast Feed Rig System

Eight years ago at New Farm Produce we successfully installed our first Aquaplast feed rig system to enable us to have accurate control of a raised coir bag growing system. After enormous success through the years we are currently in the process of installing our eighth Aquaplast feed rig system to allow us to control fertigation on a new soil grown strawberry site, showing our confidence in the equipment for both substrate and soil grown systems. With a user-friendly interface, accurate controls and the ability to have flexible watering and feed programmes the Aquaplast feed rig system has allowed us to improve our irrigation management by delivering a precise, effective output to each and every plant resulting in reduced water consumption and reduced fertiliser costs.

And we are currently looking at additional features to our systems such as a HMI (Human Machine Interface) software package and participating in a RTM (Real Time Management) project to enable even more accurate dosing.

“Aquaplast have undoubtedly delivered great results at New Farm Produce subsequently having a huge positive impact on our business.
We would like to thank Ripple Aquaplast for all their support.”

After being recommended by Dafydd and Andrew Joseph of Dingle Nurseries, Welshpool, Mark Bebb, managing director of Salop Leisure in Shrewsbury approached us to design and supply an irrigation system at a new plant. The plant centre will complement their already bustling caravan and leisure sales complex. The design involved providing a suitable sized water storage tank with a pump to supply water to the various different irrigation systems – sprinkler, drip and hand watering, which were installed across the centre.

We were requested to find an installer as the weather and other factors had caused delays meaning that it would not be feasible to meet the Easter opening deadline. We worked in conjunction with one of our colleagues to complete the installation which included some reworking along the way to take into account changes in layout and design.

Complete system including auto pumps, wrap around feed rig and NDJ drip system.

• Wrap Around Rig
• A new 10 valve blueberry field with remote pump house.
• Compact container of 8’ x 10’.
• Customer installed all pipework to a very high standard and only required minimum time on site by Aquaplast engineers.
• Flow rates and pressures checked whilst on site.
• Dedicated blueberry site with initial planting of 4 Hectare of tunnels with 32,000 pots
• Two NaanDanJain 2 L/h drippers per pot. Facility included to increase the number of drippers per pot if required
• Future expansion capacity built into the pumping, fertiliser dosing and header pipe infrastructure
• Ability to remotely control the irrigation scheduling and monitor the current schedules with historical data recorded
• Alarms for non-function of irrigation and fertiliser doing systems

Wrap around feed rig with speed control pump, multiple header mains to NDJ dripper system.

• Wrap Around rig with automatic speed controlled pump
• 5 venturi system allowing different A + B sources
• All valves next to pump house to allow different recipes to each valve.
• Topographical laser measurements made prior to installation
• Table top system throughout on Strawberries
• Upgrade of existing strawberry area to a table top system
• Upgrading and replacement of the original header system to allow for fertigation of each valve block on an individual basis
• Dedicated pumping and fertiliser dosing system with facility to expand the area in the future
• Control system can be upgraded to allow for remote operation and monitoring
• Data recording and storage allow for historical analysis
• Alarms for non-function of irrigation control and fertigation systems

The request was to design, supply and construct heated sand beds for the propagation of plants. The particular crop benefits from the implementation of bottom heat in the propagation stage, therefore we designed a system of pipes to circulate the heated water around the beds to apply the correct temperature with full automatic control. The water is heated by a commercial boiler although in the future an air source heat pump or solar panels could be installed.

• The existing stone base was stripped of Mypex and timber for disease reduction
• Tanalised timber frames 150mm high, supported by steel rods, were installed to contain the sand
• 50mm polystyrene insulation sheets with drainage holes laid in the bottom
• 16mm PE heating pipes, connected to a header manifold, and spaced at 30cm apart
• A plastic mesh was overlaid on the heating pipes to ensure they remain buried
• 100mm sand up to board height
• A drip irrigation system was laid on the top of the bed to allow under crop irrigation. This will leave the crop canopy dry whilst keeping the sand moist to ensure uniform heat dissipation.

In addition to the sand beds, we were asked to install a misting system for cooling/humidification over the crop. This consisted of foggers spaced at 2m x 1m and 1.2 m above the crop. The misting system is controlled by an evaposensor controller which will monitor the in-crop environment and trigger the misting at the set point. The controller can be used to wean the crop once rooting is advanced enough.

New In-line Feed Rig

• Booster Rig
• Boosts the pressure and flow rates
• Pre-wired rig allows for additional sump pump in the lagoon
• 5 Venturi system to allow both Strawberries and Blueberries
• Replacing an existing Dosatron system
• Disc filter enhances the mix before going onto the plants.
• Installed mid season with a high demand on the irrigation
• Down time of only a few hours

Wrap around rig, fully automated pump set and CNL dripline in troughs.

• Variable Speed twin pump set
• Wrap Around Rig
• Topographical laser measurements made prior to installation
• Strawberry Crop on formed soil with coir substrate.
• Supply water drawn from the river
• Historical data collection
• Dedicated 5 hectare strawberry site with 19200m of troughs in pre-formed beds
• Amnon 20mm 1.1 L/h drip lines with drippers at 30cm spacing
• Lateral LPD’s designed in to prevent drain down
• Pumping system, dosing rig and header pipe system designed to allow for future expansion
• Filling system for water storage tank included
• Ability to operate the system remotely allowed for
• Data recording for historical analysis
• Alarms for non-function of irrigation and/or dosing systems