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I planning to start my own medical/culinary growing farm somewhere in the not too far future. I'm on a training at the moment on this subject (I'll get a mid-level exam paper about it that I can use to work in this field). Luckily the literature in my native language (Hungarian) is pretty good but I would happily read something international on this subject to widen my view.

My question that is there any literature on this subject? I'm interested in mechanized (possibly industrial-scale) growing only (like what machinery to use, how to grow herbs on hectares etc) but mainly what I get when using google is how to grow a few herbs in your backyard garden.

For example, this is what I'm looking for (finding something a bit more generic would be a lot more useful):

https://www.crcpress.com/Chamomile-Industrial-Profiles/Franke-Schilcher/p/book/9780415334631

Thanks

Lakatos Gyula
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  • when you say 'medical/culinary' are you referring to herbs that you want to produce on an 'industrial' scale? Or some other type of crop? – Bamboo Nov 09 '17 at 09:39
  • AFAIK there is not much data: it is considered industrial secret, so every company use it for own advantage. Additionally, the market is not large, so there are just niche machines (and you need to adapt on you own use). So much work is still done handmade, but because the high prices, it is still profitable. – Giacomo Catenazzi Nov 09 '17 at 10:02
  • @Bamboo Yes, herbs I want to produce on an industrial scale. Like mint, basil, chamomile, echinacea etc. I learn about these in school and read most of the Hungarian literature on the industrial scale growing of these plants. – Lakatos Gyula Nov 09 '17 at 10:25
  • @GiacomoCatenazzi Yeah, I guess this is why I have problems finding any info about the machines used. "So much work is still done handmade, but because of the high prices, it is still profitable." I'm an IT guy (working as a programmer) and this is one thing I plan to change/research. Maybe I can innovative a bit on this subject (I'm a big fan of robotics, data gathering etc) but first I want to understand the existing machinery (probably there are good reasons why these things are still handmade etc). – Lakatos Gyula Nov 09 '17 at 10:29
  • @Alina I would be really helpful for a link. Romania is a neighbor country so the climate etc... is quite similar. Both the broken English and the Romanian texts would be fine. I can ask someone to do the Romanian to Hungarian translation for sure. – Lakatos Gyula Nov 09 '17 at 16:12
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    @LakatosGyula: "Hand made" is also a selling point. But (as in the comments below Bamboo's answer), it really depends on what you are looking. But much of the vegetables are still harvested by hand. It is still cheaper. IMHO one process that could be optimized is the preparation (separation of good stuffs with "alien" herbs after harvesting). Actually is done partly automatic and partly manual, but with machine learning, the robots could separate stuffs easier. The horticultural part is the less problematic. – Giacomo Catenazzi Nov 09 '17 at 16:13
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    @LakatosGyula http://tinyurl.com/yax8ekyz If the link doesn't work, please tell me and I will find an alternative. By the way, I recommend that you edit a bit your question because it risks being closed as off-topic (maybe mechanized instead of industrial-scale). If someone with more knowledge will see this question, he/she will not be able to post a new answer because of it being closed. – Alina Nov 09 '17 at 17:30
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    @Alina Thanks, I was able to download the slides! Also changed the question a bit, thanks for that suggestion too. – Lakatos Gyula Nov 09 '17 at 19:01
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it pertains to industrial farming (large-scale agriculture), which is mentioned as off-topic in the help center. – Brōtsyorfuzthrāx Nov 10 '17 at 00:04

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This is outside my area of expertise, but, living where you do, obviously greenhouse growing will be necessary for the more tender plants like basil. A large proportion of horticultural work is done by hand - handling small plants is tender work, and whether a machine could ever repot a plant into a larger container, or plant out tiny seedlings in rows in the ground, well, I can't visualize that as an option currently. Robotics isn't advanced enough yet to deal with small living things in this way, but maybe in the future, it will be.

My suggestion is this - take a job for a few months with a herb growing operation or company. It'll be badly paid, but you're not doing it for the money, you're doing it to find out what's involved in growing plants, herbs in particular, how its done, what the plants need and how to physically handle them, what lighting/heating/watering/feeding systems and machinery are currently in use, whether the plants are regularly sprayed with pesticides and fungicides and how that's done, that sort of thing. Once you know how it's all done, then you can bend your particular technical skills to working out whether you can create something mechanised/robotic to do more of the work. It'd be pretty hard to do that without good horticultural/agricultural awareness of what plants need... hands on experience with real plants is probably essential,as well as reading about it all.

Bamboo
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  • First of all, thanks for your answer.To be honest I would try to avoid the more tender plants as long as possible.Greenhouses are quite expensive and out of my planned operations at this moment. What I mainly need the machinery knowledge for is to know how to process/harvest these plant s effectively. "take a job for a few months with a herb growing operation" - To be honest this is in my plans but before it, I want to get as much information as possible. We do a lot of practical training (go to processing companies, do plating etc) but reading a few books on the subject would be also helpful. – Lakatos Gyula Nov 09 '17 at 11:31
  • 'Processing companies' ; does that mean preparation of herbs for culinary use, as in things like making pesto in factories for commercial sale? Or the processing required for herbal remedies, some supplements like rosehip, or homoepathic medicine, as in turning it into tablets? This is an enormous field if you mean all those things... – Bamboo Nov 09 '17 at 12:06
  • Well, what I'm interested in is how to turn raw herbs like chamomile into a packaged (or ready to be packaged) chamomile tea. Like cleaning, dehydrating, quality control, packaging etc. I know it's an enormous field. I have been at companies that did this, the school I'm learning at arranged these visits and I found this part quite interesting. I found some good Hungarian books about it too but nothing on the international market. I don't plan to invest into all of these procedures/machines, I just want to learn about them for now. – Lakatos Gyula Nov 09 '17 at 13:06
  • I posted an example book to the original question. It's about chamomile. I'm looking for something similar but a bit more generic. – Lakatos Gyula Nov 09 '17 at 13:07