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Raker Virtual Tour
Raker Facility
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Raker’s 440,000 ft2 (10 acre, 4 ha) facility was designed from the ground up for plug and liner production. The facility is all Rough Brothers greenhouses.
In addition to our state-of-the-art greenhouse facility, Raker also has extensive outdoor trial and demonstration gardens featuring annual comparison trials, an All America Selections (AAS) trial, and a living perennial catalog garden which includes all the perennials we offer.
The Raker gardens are being renovated and expanded for 2007, with the addition of raised beds display gardens, raised rows for our comparison trials, and new container and hanging basket areas. We are confident the renovation will make our outdoor trials an even more valuable resource. |
Raker History
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Raker relocated to Litchfield, MI in 1978, as a vegetable truck farming operation. The first greenhouses were originally built for the production of vegetable transplants, and in the mid 1980s the first Rough Brothers greenhouses were built for plug production. Today we annually ship over 170 million plugs and liners, throughout North America. |
Raker Production
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Raker offers a full line of seed plugs and vegetative liners, including annual bedding plants, specialty annuals, herbs and vegetables, mums, poinsettias, flowering pot crops, cut flowers, and perennials. We offer over 3,000 different varieties, and are always willing to discuss custom production of items outside our extensive list.
Always striving for improvement, Raker is currently undergoing a LEAN process design to improve efficiency throughout our production system. With our new systems, our shipping processes and sticking processes have undergone significant improvements, to help us serve our customers better. |
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Seed Propagation
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Sowing is done with Blackmore cylinder seeders. Our in-line sowing system automatically fills and labels trays as they approach the seeding equipment. |
Vegetative Propagation
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Raker purchases vegetative cuttings from a number of suppliers, both domestic and off-shore. We receive cutting shipments weekly from as far away as Mexico, Central America, South America, Africa, and Israel. Cuttings are rooted under fog and overhead mist, to provide the ideal moisture level for quick rooting.
As our vegetative liner production volume continues to grow, maintaining efficiency while sticking cuttings has become increasingly important. We now stick over a million cuttings per week during our peak season. Our new cutting system, designed for efficiency, includes 2 lines with 9 sticking stations per line and multiple conveyor lines. |
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Quality Counts
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Throughout the production process, quality is evaluated to ensure our count and plant quality is up to our standards. Tray patching is done to ensure every tray we sell meets our guaranteed plug or liner count. Two Dutch robotic systems (one by Visser and one by TTA) help ensure that all trays are patched in a timely and efficient manner. Some patching is still done by hand. |
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Shipping
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Raker ships in boxes and on racks or our shipping cradles via truck. After boxing, FedEx orders are pre-sorted by zip code into air canisters by FedEx employees on site. Our high shipping volume with FedEx places Raker right after Ford and GM in terms of total volume in Michigan. |
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