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As a tomato grower, you naturally never want to have to deal with diseases or pests in your greenhouse. Because once bacteria, mould or viruses take hold in your greenhouse, you can pretty much say goodbye to your crop. Combating these problems with the permitted pesticides has long since ceased to be effective in all circumstances. It therefore goes without saying: preventing tomato diseases is better than combating them.
To prevent bacteria, mould or viruses from taking hold in your greenhouse, good hygiene and a good hygiene protocol take top priority. The expression ‘A chain is only as strong as its weakest link’ springs to mind here. Or: if one aspect of hygiene is not absolutely right then tomato diseases stand a chance and the crop will in all probability be rendered worthless. This would obviously have an enormous economic impact on the running of your business.
Hygiene issues
Ensuring good hygiene in the greenhouse means following a strict hygiene protocol, all aspects of which – like links in a chain – are equally important. Ensuring good personal hygiene of the people who enter the greenhouse is logically the most obvious measure you can take. You can do this by installing a hygiene lock at the entrance to the greenhouse.
But that’s not all. Because if you ensure good personal hygiene but ‘forget’ to pay attention to the hygiene of, or example, the crates and pallets in and on which your tomatoes are transported, then that represents a weak link in your hygiene policy.
It is also important that the greenhouse can only be entered via the hygiene lock. Ensure that employees and visitors can only enter the premises via the designated entrance and also ensure that other doors – such as emergency exits – cannot be opened from outside.
Process conditions
Needless to say it is important that the hygiene measures you take are actually effective. For example, the process conditions of a crate washer or pallet washer have to be good. Put another way: what is the most effective washing time, what are the required washing temperatures and what chemicals work the best? Elpress has the knowledge and experience to determine this in-house for each business-specific situation.
Personal protective equipment
The ensure good hygiene and good personal protection for your employees, it is always a good idea to use the right personal protective equipment. Think in particular about the basic requirement to wear gloves at work. There are two benefits to this: hygiene is further improved and your employees’ hands are protected against external factors.
hygiene toolkit
The best protection for your crop is good hygiene. Elpress is pleased to offer you tools to get hygiene standards in your business right and keep them that way. So download our handy toolkit with a clear hygiene protocol and tips for good hand hygiene today.
