How Catoctin Mountain Growers Linked Space Planning to Production with PRODUCE™
Catoctin Mountain Growers, a family-owned wholesale greenhouse in Keymar, Maryland, runs one of the larger covered ranges in the mid-Atlantic: about 23 acres under glass and 15 more outdoors, turning from spring annuals through fall mums into poinsettias every year. Grocery programs, garden centers, and landscape accounts all ship from the same houses. When every crop competes for the same bench weeks, the plan is the operation, and Catoctin needed a plan that lived somewhere better than a spreadsheet.
The Challenge
A greenhouse that turns three seasons across the same square footage has one scarce resource: space, measured in weeks. Production planning that lives apart from space planning answers only half the question. You can know what to grow and still discover in March that two crops want the same bay, or finish a season without knowing which houses actually earned their heat.
Catoctin needed the two plans on one record: what gets grown, and where it sits, week by week, from the first plug to the last shipped rack.
The PRODUCE™ Solution
PRODUCE™ carries Catoctin’s production plan and its space plan on the same record, so a change in one is a change in both.
One plan, in weeks
- Production recipes carry grow weeks and yield, from plug to finish
- Space capacity is planned by week and space type, before the house fills
- Utilization is watched across every location as the season runs
A partner, not a vendor
Catoctin has been a key stakeholder in the platform’s development, working directly with the Silver Fern product team as new capability takes shape. That relationship shows up in the product, and in the support behind it.
Tyler, VP, Catoctin Mountain Growers: “PRODUCE™ is a big improvement in production planning for our company. The biggest upgrade for us is the ability to link space planning with production planning. The support is good, and we are able to have detailed conversations with people who understand our challenges and work-flows. The leadership at Silver Fern has a wealth of industry knowledge and first-hand experience.”
Results at a Glance
- Space planning and production planning on one record: the upgrade Catoctin calls the biggest, a schedule that knows where every crop sits, not just what gets grown
- Support that speaks grower: detailed conversations with people who understand greenhouse challenges and workflows, in Tyler’s own words
- Industry depth behind the product: leadership with first-hand growing experience shaping where the platform goes next
The Bottom Line
For an operation that turns tens of acres of glass three times a year, the win is not another report. It is one plan that holds production and space together, week by week, season after season. That is what PRODUCE™ runs at Catoctin Mountain Growers today.
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