User:Leilah Thiart/sandbox

Company information
The Grodan Group supplies substrate solutions for the professional horticultural sector, based on Precision Growing principles. These solutions are, amongst others, applied for the cultivation of vegetables and flowers,such as tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers, aubergines, roses and gerberas. Grodan was established in 1969 and is active in over 60 countries worldwide. The Grodan head offices are in Roermond, the Netherlands.

Rockwool Group The Grodan Group is a part of the Rockwool Group. A global supplier of products and systems based on stone wool. These stone wool products and systems are applied as thermal and acoustic insulation, fire protection, cultivation media and special fibres for industrial use. The Rockwool Group was founded in 1937 and employs over 8,800 people in more than 30 countries worldwide. The head office is located close to Copenhagen. In 2010 the Group generated sales of DKK 11,732 million. The company is listed on the NASDAQ OMX Nordic Exchange Copenhagen.

Activities
All Grodan substrate solutions are aimed at doing more with less, or as Grodan calls it: 'Precision Growing' a highly efficient and effective form of growing focussed on the use of minimum input materials to generate maximum output.

History
Grodan is a subsidiary of the Rockwool Group, which started the commercial production of stone wool in Hedehusene, Denmark in 1937. In 1949, Rockwool opened a manufacturing plant in IJmuiden, the Netherlands, relocating this facility to Roermond in 1968. One year later, Rockwool in Denmark founded Grodan to focus on production of stone wool substrate for the horticulture sector. In 1979, Grodan established itself in the Netherlands at the Rockwool complex in Roermond.

At the end of the 1960s, environmental objections against the increasingly intensive land use in the horticultural sector mounted. One result of these objections was that the commonly used soil disinfectant, Methyl Bromide, was prohibited by law. Likewise, steaming the soil, which was very expensive and labour-intensive, fell out of favour. In the search for an alternative, the parent company of Grodan, the Danish stone wool manufacturer Rockwool, in cooperation with a number of universities, investigated the possibilities of cultivation on stone wool substrate. This solution is now used in many greenhouses today. Cultivation on stone wool results in increased production with less water and nutrients.More information

Stone wool
Stone wool is a natural product. It is made from Basalt, solidified lava spewed from the innermost depths of the earth. In the mid-nineteenth century, American geologists on Hawaii discovered a “woolly” material consisting of stone threads, which the local inhabitants were using to insulate their huts. This was a volcanic material, the product of red-hot steam being forced through liquid lava under high-pressure. The production of stone wool simulates the production of the natural product resulting from a volcanic eruption. Basalt is melted and spun into stone wool slabs, blocks and plugs. One cubic metre of basalt produces fifty cubic metres of stone wool substrate.