Thanks. You’d think I’d be the perfect candidate, what with me trialing over 50 different varieties of 'maters, and growing them for 7 years now. But, they may not care about any of that.
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Experience counts, and if they’re experienced themselves they’ll value that, I’d think. Good luck!
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Big money with more to come
AppHarvest decided to go public through a merger with a SPAC to raise $475 million in funding. The merger is valued at $1 billion since the company expects the proceeds from private investment in valued equity transactions worth $375 million from new and existing investors. Besides Novus Capital, other investors include Fidelity Management and Research Company and Inclusive Capital.
According to the report, all of these commitments at $10 per share will bring the company to the value of $1 billion.
Novus Capital was listed on Nasdaq on May 22. The company raised $100 million with its securities under the ticker symbol “NOVS” and “NOVSW.”
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Hopefully they are building a greenhouse that can withstand thunderstorms. There was a several acre hydroponic, greenhouse for growing tomatoes that was built where I am from that went out of business within 5 years. 2 major hailstorms did them in. They even got suckered into buying some over grown propane cannon after the 1st storm, that supposedly would keep hailstones from forming over the greenhouse.
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Yeah, I had seen something about them going public on CNBC last year. If I remember, Martha Stewart was involved but I don’t know to what extent. They were mostly interviewing Jonathan Webb, the founder/CEO.
I just checked, and NOVS was abt $24 and NOVSW was abt $34. So, not a bad return so far on the $10 opening price.
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Should be interesting when the SPAC moves to an IPO later this year.
A feature on CNBC showed the inside of the greenhouse which was an efficient factory that grew vegetables.
I understand they plan to produce 45 millions pounds of organic tomatoes each year. Hope their tomatoes taste good since most of the greenhouse tomatoes in the supermarkets taste like crap.
This could put pressure folks who grow local grown produce like myself. Hope they stay away from Blueberries, Blackbackberries and Peaches!
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Here’s an interview Webb did last Sept with TD Ameritrade
My wife’s coworker’s husband has been there about a month working as a packer. He gets to bring home some culled tomatoes, and she said although they aren’t as good as home grown fruit, they are better than store bought.
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Thanks for posting. Going to be very interesting to see how it works out. Could be a revolution in food production in the US.
I’m amazed they are able to grow a 60 acre tomato crop in a greenhouse with no pesticides. I read somewhere the variety is “Brandywine” rather than a more modern hybrid tomato with resistance to certain diseases.
If you read from the site, they are doing some kind of pest control.
Integrated Pest Management
By controlling our environments, we eliminate the need for chemical pesticides. Instead, we practice what’s called integrated pest management, a combination of highly trained employees and sophisticated technology.
We use beneficial insects throughout our facility to control the pest population. And we use hundreds of sensors and cameras to record and analyze high-quality, granular images of each plant, identifying any pests before they become a problem. These cameras attach to carts that constantly travel throughout our 684 rows of plants, providing real-time alerts of risks. Upon discovering areas of concern, the technology also predicts how the issue will expand if untreated, ensuring any matter is fully addressed. The result is far less waste, ensuring we grow as efficiently as possible.
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Well, one positive is they will be ‘grown in the USA’…but even so the Chinese probably will buy the stock, and like the pig slaughter houses…Chinese orders get filled before the local buyers for restaurants and grocery store chains. Way too often large operations of this nature aren’t what they seem or what the PR department tells local media.
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I read what they published, but Integrated Pest Management is an old phrase that does not mean much in my opinion. All the IPM manuals for fruit I’m familiar with use synthetic chemicals as the primary controls but in a way that reduces their harm to Beneficial’s and typically involves some type of pheromone traps to determine when to spray to kill the bad bugs and perhaps beneficial insects or bacteria. The goal is to kill the primary insects that do the damage and allow the beneficial to manage the secondary insects.
Looks likes their program is a lot more sophisticated with no chemicals.
If they can grow a 60 acres of tomatoes with no pesticides I’m going to be amazed. Perhaps they do not consider organic ORMI pesticides to be “chemicals”
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Link?
That seems odd, as BW isn’t the most prolific producer, it’s been a shy bearer for me. At least the potato leafed pink and yellow versions are, the regular leaf black variety seems to be a better producer for us.
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The only link I can find calls them “Beefsteak” tomatoes.
I thought he said Brandywine when I saw him on CNBC but I could be wrong.
The Brandywine variety stuck on my mind since I have grown it where Beefsteak would not.
Yes whats allowed to be sprayed inside in greenhouses is different from outside and you can definitely still spray certain “organic” pesticides and still be omri.
From other people i know who are successfull in “omri” greenhouses seem to be “reactive” with pesticides when pests become too high and pro active with beneficial bacterias and insects to discourage it from becoming so.
Nutrition also is a large factor in organic production
Wife called from work and said she got some tomatoes from the greenhouse from one of her co-workers (whose husband works there).
Will post later some pics and report on their flavor, size, etc.
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Some pics-
The ripe ones are about 13-14oz, they look like a regular beefsteak tom. Flavor is mild, a bit sweet. Like mentioned earlier, I’d say it’s better than store bought, but that may be because it was picked a few days ago.
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i’m assuming they use some sort of LED lighting?
I usually stick to grape tomatoes in winter. They seem to be pretty good even this time of year.
They use a combo of LED, high pressure sodium gas lights, and sunlight (see post 16 above).
Wonder what the benefit of HPS lights are in that setup? Some sort of wavelength?
They should be setting these greenhouses up over hot springs or digging deep boreholes into the Earth and extracting heat.
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Some give off red, some blue light for various stages of plant development. And give off heat at higher wattages.
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