Reichenau Gemüse eG, a vegetable growing co-operative from Reichenau Island, Lake Constance, now protects its peppers with CCTV. It’s not just that Germans are partial to the fruit of the capsicum annuum, but because the farm on the German-Swiss border needs to deter vandalism and safeguard production.
The year 2012 was the first growing season for its new 11 hectare production site at Beuren an der Aach, near Singen in ‘mainland’ Baden-Württemberg where a tall 110,000 square metre glasshouse holds 250,000 pepper plants. A break-in with associated damage led to repair bills and an interruption to production. The five families in the venture decided: better safe than sorry. To safeguard their contract for the supply of peppers to Edeka stores across southern Germany, they had local installer Casicuro GmbH fit a Geutebruck video system and have since experienced no further incidents.
The exterior of the double-skinned greenhouse, the fuel tank and pack house loading bay and entrance are key areas, monitored with Geutebruck TopLine (model TopBC-2118) and Basler megapixel cameras. These all switched to infrared after dark to provide 24-hour cover. Pictures are automatically recorded by the central re_porter-IP/SE hybrid recorder only when movement is detected in the camera streams. For convenience the CCTV offers local and remote access.
In hot weather, pepper production needs eight litres of water per square metre a day, so safeguarding the supply is important also. Some 70 percent of the required water comes from the rain collected on the site and stored in two large reservoirs. These are monitored to prevent contamination, or failing that, to ensure early detection and prompt mitigation.
The green, yellow, orange and red peppers growing on four-metre tall plants, are harvested by hand but with the aid of 47 hydraulic electric vehicles. These automatically transport the picked fruit to the adjoining pack house along a track consisting of heating pipes set into on the floor.
For more information on Geutebruck video security systems – visit www.geutebrueck.com
