12 A sea of flowers at 2011 Pack Trials - Floraculture International

Automation
Andreas Psenner
e.G. is a leading
breeding company
and plug plant
supplier in
Bozen/Bolzano,
Italy. Innovative
technology has
always been a
Psenner trademark,
using pioneering
Ellegaard machines
that have set
the standard for
excellence. Its
founder Andreas
Psenner –nicknamed
‘the King of
Pelargoniumsalways
stayed true
to his desire to do
things differently
while never missing
an opportunity to
improve his plants.
Danish high tech and
Tyrolean thoroughness:
a perfect match
Andreas Psenner e. G. is a family
business in the true sense of the word.
Left to right Robert, Andreas and
Thomas.
by Ron van der Ploeg
Take the 1994 Ellegaard semi
automatic ‘substrate pot
machine’, the model that
changed young plant growing at
Psenner forever. Its genius is its simplicity;
a mixture of peat, perlite,
fertilizer, wetting agent designed to
suit the needs of the bedding plant
drawn by vacuum form a small
hopper into a feed tube surrounded
by biodegradable paper. The paper
tube is filled with media and then
cut to Ellepots in various lengths
and diameters.
Three new Ellegaard
NGL machines
Over the last four years Psenner
has bought three new Ellegaard
NGL machines. “One of the major
benefits of the high volume NGL
is it’s high capacity of 35,000 pots
per hour”, explains 36-year old
Thomas Psenner, the company’s
production manager who received
his education at horticultural high
schools in Delft, the Netherlands
and Weihenstephan, Germany.
He adds, “It’s ‘moves’, however, are
slow, treating the peat in a gently
way while maintaining the airy
structure. The new NGL’s feature
thirteen feed tubes, whereas the
old machine from the nineties had
only two tubes and ran at high
speed. Next to the improved pot
quality, the Ellegaard NGL also
offers a higher average life span and
is less noisy. The latter has been an
important buying criteria as at our
premises in Kaltern the machines
are installed right in the heart of
the company so it’s important that
they are not too loud.”
Cost savings
Established in Bozen in 1967,
Andreas Psenner currently has
two premises, the original nursery
in Bozen and a newer nursery in
Kaltern covering together an area of
42,000 m 2 for rooting young (bedding
plants and Poinsettia) plants.
“We have two establishments and
Ellepots, naturally, are needed at
both facilities. We decided to also
install the new NGL machine in
Kaltern, located 20km south of
Bozen so it is no longer necessary
to travel to and fro with the risk of
8 www.FloraCultureInternational.com | June 2011