Getting to know our local Tomato Grower 
Interview with Nick Arnst, General Manager, La Serra Ltd 
by Fil Amoroso, BaTPC Parish Councillor

La Serra is based at Rotherdale Farm on Long Lane, Throckmorton. They produce high quality, tasty tomatoes all year-round in a state of the art, eight hectare glasshouse.  

What’s the difference between how you grow your tomato plants from how we would grow them at home? 


Our facility uses state of the art technology to monitor the complete climate conditions of the plants. Based on these conditions, we can then alter the amount of heat, light, nutrients, water and CO2 that the plants receive. We utilise two different types of watering techniques, both hydroponic systems that capture any excess water and recirculate that back into our irrigation systems. 

We also introduce beneficial insects, such as British Bumblebees & predatory bugs to help us with pollinating the crops and controlling any pests that we may get. 

The plants are ‘worked’ every week to ensure that the trusses are uniform and the fruit is at the right specifications for the supermarket customers.  

How long do the plants grow for? 

We receive our plants from UK based plant propagators as a 50-day-old seedling in around the middle of July. We then plant them on site and aid them to grow by fully controlling the environment they live in. We can control the amount of light, water, nutrients, heat and CO2 that they need. After 6-8 weeks the first ripe tomatoes are ready to pick. We continue to pick from the same plants all the way through the winter to the following June when we remove the old plants and replant. 
Why do you need to use lights? 
As you can imagine, a tomato plant needs light to grow. Because we are specialising in growing tomatoes for the winter months we need to supplement the small amount of available natural light with artificial lights. This combination of natural, external light and internal artificial light replicates the amount of total light a plant would receive in the summer months. 


How do you ensure the light doesn’t escape the glasshouse? 
The Glasshouse is installed with state of the art ‘blackout’ blinds. This reflects all the light back inside and makes sure it doesn’t escape into the surrounding area. As we need to maximise the amount of light the plants receive during the day, we need to open the blinds during daylight hours to supplement the artificial light levels that the plants are receiving. 

What do you do with the plants at the end of their life cycle? 
Any plant waste throughout the season is sent to the Anaerobic Digestion plants at Rotherdale farm to aid them in their processes. Our aim is that anything leftover or not suitable for their processes will be composted and then used on our wider company farms. 

Working at La Serra 
We are always keen to employ locally. To find out more please go the following link: https://www.laserra.org.uk/careers/ 

Where can we buy your tomatoes?  

We sell all of our tomatoes to a produce marketing company called Evesham Vale Growers. From there the tomatoes end up in supermarkets such as Sainsburys, Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl & Co-op. 

If you want to find out more, please visit their website at https://www.laserra.org.uk

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