Subtrates of the future
For decades, the horticultural world relied on two gold standards: Peat Moss and Coconut Coir. But the industry has reached a breaking point. Peat is under siege from climate legislation and carbon-removal mandates, while Coco is suffering from a "perfect storm" of supply chain fragility and ecological strain. This session explores the high-stakes transition to the Substrates of the Future. We will bring together substrate innovators to discuss how growers are successfully moving away from traditional media without sacrificing yield or increasing their operational risk.
Speakers
Roel Janssen is the head of Business Development at Planet Farms, a technology company that builds and operates fully autonomous vertical farms at scale. Before devoting his work full-time to Planet Farms Roel spent 13 years at Signify (previously known as Philips Lighting), where he was the Global Director for City Farming. In his years at Signify Roel became an industry expert in the field of vertical farming and has been invited to speak and share his views all around the globe. He was also a guest lecturer at the HAS University of Applied Science in the Netherlands. Roel graduated Business Administration in Eindhoven, where he still lives with his wife and 2 kids. Next to growing plants in a sustainable way Roel has a great passion for wine, which resulted in a WSET 3 certification.
Kyle Freedman is the global Market Segment Manager CEA and Jiffy Gel Product Manager for Jiffy Group responsible for providing technical guidance and support to Jiffy's global CEA customers and helping to drive market expansion. Kyle holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. He earned his MSc. in International Agriculture Development from the University of California at Davis with a concentration in Horticulture and Agronomy where his research focused on climate-smart, small-scale postharvest processing systems of coffee in Honduras. He obtained a PhD in Horticultural Sciences from North Carolina State University where his research focused on the development of a new hydroponic grapevine production system called Precise Indoor Vine Conditioning (PIVC) in which young grapevines are conditioned with supplemental light to produce fruit in their first season of field transplanting. With 15+ years of experience, Kyle was previously a Sr. Project Management Specialist at RTI International prior to graduate school where he was a part of their global food security and agriculture team managing over $150 million in USAID and USDA development projects in East Africa and Southeast Asia.
Dr. Sebastian Kipp is Director Innovation at Klasmann-Deilmann, where he focuses on driving sustainable growing media solutions for professional horticulture. He leads innovation initiatives related to renewable raw materials, growing media technologies, and climate-friendly cultivation systems. Dr. Kipp studied plant sciences and received his PhD from the Technical University of Munich, specializing in plant phenotyping and sensor-based technologies for crop research. Today, his work focuses on developing next-generation growing media, including innovative biochar solutions as well as peatreduced and peat-free substrates to support more sustainable and climate-resilient horticultural production.