Novarbo Oy has developed a new ecological growing media that is based on sphagnum moss. The new substrate slab can be composted, and it can replace materials that are not biodegradable.
Mosswool® is sustainable growing media for vegetable cultivation in greenhouses. Advantages of Mosswool® are its fitting to modern cultivation method, antiseptic and fast renewable material as also possibility for recycling after use.
Greenhouse vegetable cultivation is increasingly moving towards hydroponic production for ecological reasons. To this aim, Novarbo has developed Mosswool® growing media.
Mosswool® is the sustainable and total costs saving growing media for vegetable cultivation. Mosswool® slabs are made of sphagnum moss, which is harvested with a patented ecological method. Mosswool® can save money for the greenhouse farmer, because used slabs can be composted together with crop residues.
Mosswool® growing slab is the drop-in sustainable replacement to stonewool. EU-regulations state that stonewool filled with living root mass may not be dumped in landfill. After one year of usage stonewool will be waste, which does not burn or decompose. Mosswool® will solve this issue since it can be easily locally composted with the crop residues or recycled after use, which minimises disposal costs. On top of that, Mosswool® is made of rapidly renewable raw material.
Mosswool® is made of rapidly renewable sphagnum moss. Sphagnum moss is harvested with a special patented Light Sphagnum Removal technique (LSR technique) developed by EcoMoss Oy, who is part of Biolan Group. LSR technique harvests only a part of the living moss, presses water out the moss and returns this water back to the bog biotope. The surface of the bog is not skimmed bare, so there remains plenty of spores to regrow new moss. To enhance the growing process, auxiliary buds regrow from the remaining layers. Hence the re-growth takes place both from the surface by spores and from the remaining moss layer by buds.
Biolan Group continuously cooperates with research institutes to ensure that the collection technology of sphagnum moss supports the regeneration of the bog´s surface layer and moss as soon as possible.
Sustainable and total cost saving growth media
Equal or better performance than stonewool slabs
Made of rapidly renewable raw material
Minimises disposal costs: can be locally composted or recycled
Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE) has tested Mosswool® for cucumber growing in their greenhouse for 10 weeks and proved that it performs better than stonewool.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 778341. This brochure reflects only Novarbo ́s view and EASME and the Commission are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.