February 21, 2025
Catoctin Mountain Growers – A Leader in Ornamental Flowers
Catoctin Mountain Growers (CMG) is a 23 acre, state-of-the-art greenhouse located in Keymar, Maryland. The company supplies products such as ornamental flowers and young plants throughout the eastern region, year-round.
Bob and Denise Van Wingerden have owned and operated CMG since 1985. Today, they run the business with help from their children and their dedicated local employees. The company is widely recognized as an innovative and service-oriented company.
The Challenge: Help CMG Grow More and Improve ROI
Catoctin Mountain Growers was looking for uniform, low-intensity broad spectrum light over a large area to help them step-change their business growth. It’s not always sunny in northern Maryland, and getting some extra light on cloudy days can make a big difference to a greenhouse grower here. CMG had some HPS lights in their facility, but those weren’t meeting their need for efficient, high quality, lower-maintenance lighting.
When they were initially looking for lights, they talked to a range of vendors, most of whom suggested lights that had power that was too high for their ornamental production. JumpLights, however, had a unique solution that was both efficient and provided the right amount of light for growing ornamentals.
The JumpLights Solution: 800 New Lights
CMG chose Jumplights for the efficiency, ideal spectrum of our lights and because of our service. We quickly got to work. JumpLights installed 800 of our ETS greenhouse lights to replace CMG’s HPS lights and also add new lighted area to the facility.
The Results: Improved Yields and Reduced Energy Costs
The new lights improved CMG’s yields and reduced energy costs by 41% and decreased their turn times by 3 weeks. As a further help to costs, half of the lights were paid for by rebates secured by JumpLights. CMG can now turn plants more quickly to generate revenue earlier in the season.
“JumpLights are great partners,” said Tyler Van Wingerden, Vice President at Catoctin Mountain Growers. “The plants look great due to even light distribution, customized light intensity, and applying the right spectrum for our plant types.”
The lights were also very cost-effective. “The new lighting saves us energy and the JumpLights team works hard to find incentives,” Van Wingerden said.
Catoctin Mountain Growers has continued to use JumpLights lights until the present day and JumpLights frequently visits CMG to check in.
“We love working with Catoctin Mountain Growers,” said JumpLights co-founder Matteo del Ninno, “and the approach we took with CMG can help other ornamental flower cultivators decrease their turn times and reduce costs as well.”
Sources:
https://www.greenhousegrower.com/management/innovation-never-stops-at-catoctin-mountain-growers/
