The ULTRA substrate: our next generation of highly reactive growing bags.

Controlling your crop starts with controlling your substrate. ULTRA is Biogrow’s most advanced growing medium to date — engineered from the ground up at our own R&D centre in India, manufactured entirely in our own facilities, and now being validated at scale in commercial greenhouses across multiple countries. This is not an incremental update. It is a new generation.

What is Biogrow ULTRA?

ULTRA is an advanced growing medium designed around one central objective: giving the grower maximum control over crop steering. It achieves this through two technical pillars that work together — absolute homogeneity and maximum reactivity.

Homogeneity means that every bag behaves identically: the same water distribution, the same air-to-water ratio, the same root environment across the entire growing row. Reactivity means the substrate responds rapidly and predictably to irrigation decisions — draining when you want it to drain, retaining when you need retention.

Together, these properties translate into a substrate that genuinely amplifies the grower’s steering capacity. ULTRA does not compensate for irrigation errors — it makes the effect of every decision visible and consistent, giving the grower real data to work from.

Engineered at our innovation centre — with data, not assumptions

ULTRA was not developed on paper. It was built and tested at our dedicated agronomic R&D centre in India, where substrate behaviour is monitored under real production conditions before any product reaches a commercial greenhouse.

Among the parameters tracked daily during the development phase:

• Irrigation — volume and frequency, to characterise drainage response and water-holding dynamics
• Drain percentage — to validate consistency of drainage behaviour across bags and positions
• EC & pH drip vs. drain — to monitor nutrient uptake efficiency and detect any salt accumulation risk
• Root system development — visual and structural assessment at multiple growth stages

This systematic approach means that by the time ULTRA reaches a grower’s greenhouse, its behaviour under different irrigation strategies is already well understood and documented.

Ongoing field trials: early results are highly positive

ULTRA is currently being validated at scale in real production environments. The deployment is significant: 17 large-scale trials across 9 different greenhouses, in multiple countries, covering both tomato and other high-value crops.

The early agronomic observations are highly positive. We are seeing strong root colonisation from the first weeks, and drainage behaviour is behaving exactly as expected — stable and consistent with the R&D centre data. Our technical teams continue to monitor these crops closely as the season progresses.

Strong root colonisation, consistent drainage stability, predictable reactivity — the early field data confirms what the R&D phase showed.

Is ULTRA the right choice for your crop?

ULTRA is built around high reactivity — which is a genuine advantage for growers who use active crop steering strategies and want to drive vegetative or generative shifts with precision. However, high reactivity also requires a well-calibrated irrigation strategy. The substrate will respond fast; the grower needs to be ready to work with that speed.

Every crop and every greenhouse has its own dynamics. Before integrating ULTRA into a production system, it makes sense to discuss your current irrigation approach with our technical team — not because ULTRA is difficult to manage, but because adapting an irrigation strategy to a more reactive substrate from the start avoids any unnecessary adjustment period mid-season.

As the season progresses, we will continue collecting yield and quality data from the trial network and will share results as they become available.