CropTalk

This episode of CropTalk is brought to you by Hort Americas and HortiPlan. In this episode of CropTalk, we sit down with John McMahon, President of Equinox Growers. John left a corporate finance and audit career in New York, bought a run-down piece of Virginia land during the financial crisis, and bootstrapped a 1,500 square foot greenhouse into a lettuce business supplying Whole Foods, Sysco and...

In this episode of CropTalk, we sit down with Jesse Porter, VP of Business Development at Grow Pros Solutions. Jesse started growing cannabis around 2004 while studying plant science at UC Berkeley. Over 20 years he has run cannabis businesses, consulted, sold HVAC, racking, lighting, and airflow equipment, and designed facilities from 5,000 to 100,000 square feet. We walk through what he calls th...

In this episode of CropTalk, we sit down with Rodrigo Pereira, VP of Horticulture, Development, Innovation and Quality Assurance at GoodLeaf Farms. Rodrigo joined GoodLeaf in August 2025 after roughly three and a half years at Bowery Farming, where he led R&D across plant science and farm operations before the company closed in October 2024. We walk through his non-linear path into CEA, from a phy...

Carl Gupton filled his first greenhouse at half capacity on purpose, to learn how the house behaved before chasing a yield number. Now CEO of Greenswell Growers, the start-from-scratch operation outside Richmond in Goochland, Virginia, Carl returns to CropTalk to walk through what that discipline bought. Greenswell runs a single one and a half acre house, and Carl breaks down the climb to financia...

In this episode of CropTalk, we sit down with Andrew Howell, Partner at Ascendant Partners. Andrew last joined us 101 episodes ago at episode 174 in November 2021, and he returns to test what actually holds up about getting a CEA company funded or sold heading into 2026 and 2027. We walk through the three legs of the stool he uses to judge any operation: reliable growing technology and a cost effe...

  In this episode of CropTalk, we sit down with Ryan Douglas, cultivation consultant and author of Presence Is a Strategy . Ryan brings more than 25 years in commercial cultivation, starting with 15 years growing ornamental flowers across New Mexico, Mississippi, and Massachusetts, followed by a decade in cannabis that included serving as head grower for one of the first federally licensed medical...

In this episode of CropTalk, we sit down with Ryan Archer, co-founder of Horizon Growers, a developer and operator of high-tech greenhouses. Ryan came into CEA in 2018 from a construction background, brought onto a project he was told only was a greenhouse, which turned out to be a 12-hectare semi-closed facility in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates, producing 6,000 tonnes of fresh tomatoes a year for...

In this episode of CropTalk, we sit down with Jennifer Neujahr and Ted Buis, co-founders of Next Step Solutions. Between them they bring nearly six decades in horticulture: Jennifer spent more than three decades introducing products across six continents, including the 60X scale-up of Hydra fiber while building the horticulture group at Profile Products, and Ted grew a Dutch substrate company from...

In this episode of CropTalk, we sit down with Pieter Slaman, founder of GaaS Solutions and advisor to Green Gardens in Slovenia, and Tim Van Hissenhoven of Cultivators. Pieter spent over a decade scaling Little Leaf Farms into one of North America's leading greenhouse lettuce operations, while Tim was raised in a Belgian greenhouse, spent years in commercial hydroponic lettuce in the Netherlands,...

In this episode of CropTalk, we sit down with Rachael Warner, head grower at Planteva, a vertical propagation company in Canada delivering clean, pest-free starts for leafy greens and strawberries. Rachael holds a master's in plant science with a controlled environment focus and has worked across small, medium, and large-scale facilities before taking on the role of building Planteva's production...

In this episode of CropTalk, we sit down with Dirk Aleven, CEO of FoodVentures and acting president of Revol Greens. Dirk has spent two decades operating greenhouses across Eastern Europe, Asia, Scandinavia, and the US, and was brought in by Equilibrium Capital to lead the Revol Greens turnaround. We walk through what he found when he arrived at the Texas farm, including a sign on the wall directi...

In this episode of CropTalk, we sit down with David Flynn, CEO of AmplifiedAg, a Charleston-based company building technology and systems for container farming and grow room operations. David spent 25 years as a U.S. Army officer, earned the Silver Star, and found his way into CEA through founder Don Taylor after settling down in Charleston in 2015. We walk through the full arc of Amplified AG, fr...

In this episode of CropTalk, we close out the Predictions for 2026 and Beyond series with Dave Chen, CEO of Equilibrium Capital. With over $1 billion raised and deployed into large-scale greenhouse operations and companies like Revol Greens and Little Leaf Farms, Dave brings one of the most grounded capital perspectives in CEA. We dig into the faster-than-expected consolidation that reshaped the T...

n this episode of CropTalk, we continue the Predictions for 2026 and Beyond series with returning guest Adam Bergman, Managing Director of EcoTech Capital. Our conversation is grounded in Adam's 2026 report, The Ugly, the Bad, and the Good , where he lays out a clear read on the AgTech and FoodTech landscape heading into the year ahead. We dig into why Adam expects 2026 to bring the highest number...

In this episode of CropTalk, we kick off the 2026 Predictions Series with Adam Greenberg , CEO of IUNU , to examine where the CEA industry is headed in the year ahead. Adam shares five clear predictions shaping commercial greenhouse operations, including why profitability is replacing yield as the primary KPI, how labor constraints are becoming structural, and why forecasting accuracy is now a com...

In the final episode of CropTalk for 2026, I'm joined by Paul Sellew, Founder and CEO of Little Leaf Farms. Paul shares his journey from growing up in a family-run nursery in New England to building Little Leaf Farms into the leading packaged salad brand in Controlled Environment Agriculture. We talk through the early choices that shaped the company, why Little Leaf scaled deliberately, and how a...

The Future Leafy Green Leaders Series concludes with a roundtable that brings together three growers who have lived the realities of modern CEA lettuce production. Dominick DiMucci (Haven Greens) shares the nonstop demands of scaling a fully automated mobile-gully system. Gus Brennan (Greenswell Growers) adds four years of operational perspective, where consistency, maintenance, and team motivatio...

In this episode of CropTalk, we conclude the Future Leafy Leaders of CEA series with Jonah Helmer, Director of Growing at Campo Caribe in Puerto Rico. Jonah shares his path from early hydroponic work at Cornell to leading a deep water culture operation in a tropical climate that requires careful management and consistent decision making. We explore what it takes to balance high humidity, strong su...

In this episode of CropTalk, we continue the Future Leafy Leaders of CEA series with Gus Brennan, Head Grower at Greenswell Growers in Virginia. Gus shares his path from vertical farms and cannabis cultivation to leading a lean, data-driven lettuce operation built on resourcefulness and grit. We explore what it means to be "scrappy" in CEA—how small teams can solve big problems through creativity,...

In this episode of CropTalk, we kick off the Future Leafy Leaders of CEA series with Dominick DiMucci, Director of Cultivation at Haven Greens in Ontario, Canada's first fully automated mobile gully lettuce facility. Dominick shares his path from greenhouse research at Colorado State to leading a high-tech, seven-day-a-week operation in King City. We discuss what it takes to manage a nonstop produ...

The CEA Strawberry Series concludes with a roundtable bringing together three critical voices. Josh Tamminga (TamBerry Farms) shares the grower's reality after four seasons of production, Katia Zacharaki (Niab | InnoPhyte Consulting) provides a research-driven perspective on disease pressure and physiology gaps, and John Place (Nourse Farms) weighs in from the propagation side. Together they break...

We continue the CEA Strawberry Series with Josh Tamminga, Partner and Grower at TamBerry Farms in Ontario. Josh shares a candid grower's perspective, reflecting on four seasons of greenhouse and tunnel strawberry production. He explains why early yield promises were unrealistic, how plant quality remains the industry's biggest hurdle, and why growers must be more open in sharing lessons learned. W...

In this episode of CropTalk, we continue the Master Strawberry Series with Katia Kouloumprouka Zacharaki, TCEA Soft Fruit Specialist at NIAB and founder of InnoPhyte Consulting. With more than a decade of experience across start-ups and research organisations, Katia brings a research-driven perspective on the realities of strawberry cultivation in controlled environments. We cover why greenhouse a...

In this episode of CropTalk, we kick off the Master Strawberry Series with John Place, CEO of Nourse Farms, one of the largest berry propagators in North America with over 90 years of history. John brings a grounded perspective on the realities of strawberry propagation, breaking down the challenges CEA berry growers are facing today. We cover the rise of disease pressures like Neopestalotiopsis (...

In this finale episode of the Master Tomato Grower Series, we bring together three of North America's top tomato minds for a roundtable conversation: Gabriel Forero of Sunterra, Roberto Ramirez of Best Boy Farms, and Matt Korpan of the SEF Center for Horticultural Innovation. This honest, grounded discussion cuts through the noise and gets to what actually matters in tomato production today. We ta...