Introduction
In 2026, nurseries and garden stores have an estimated market value of $60.9B in the United States alone, employing over 100,000 people nationwide. Behind each plant grown in these nurseries is a massive logistical operation, spanning seeks or even months to go from seed to sale.
One such example is Kraemer’s Nursery. While located in Marion County, Oregon, Kraemer’s grows and ships plants year-round to big-box retailers across the country, driving millions in revenue each year.
Once the plants have been grown at Kraemer’s Nursery, workers are dispatched throughout the 450-acre property to find and correct the correct plants for each order, transport them to the staging areas near the trucking bays, and ensure the right products are loaded onto the correct trucks for transport.
As these operations grow increasingly digitized, a strong connectivity infrastructure becomes essential to manage them efficiently and effectively. From monitoring growth and water cycles to tracking inventory and labor to creating custom labels and QR codes for each individual plant variety, each step of the process is connected, and connectivity issues can create operational inefficiencies and delays in production.
Kraemer’s Nursery had been dealing with inconsistent connectivity across their operation, leading to further difficulties in production. This brought them to Motive and GXC, which came together to create a solution for their requirements.
The Challenge: Ensuring Complete Connectivity Across the Full Facility
Maintaining connectivity across any outdoor site, particularly one of this size, is a complex issue.
Kraemer’s Nursery, by the numbers
- 650 total acres of production space
- 400 acres of outdoor container yards
- 250 acres of field grown stock
- 67 acres of covered greenhouses
- 42 acres of Stuppy hoop houses
- 25 acres of Cravo greenhouses
- 25 acres for propagation
- 2 acres of R&D greenhouses
Before this deployment, Kraemer’s was dealing with inconsistent connectivity across their facility. The previous connectivity solution implemented hundreds of Wi-Fi access points across their grounds, which were then stitched together. These access points were not only physically unwieldy—each individual access point had to be managed, and were very difficult to move once placed—but did not create consistent connectivity across the facility.
The numerous greenhouses spread across the nursery grounds in particular experienced significant connectivity issues, as the Wi-Fi signal was unable to penetrate the greenhouse glass. In such areas with coverage gaps and unreliable connectivity, employees were often forced to record critical operational data manually using pen and paper, creating further delays in the nursery’s production schedule. This also made it difficult for Kraemer’s to digitize their processes and introduce new technologies that could expedite or evolve their production.
Kraemer’s Nursery assessed several potential solutions for their facility, considering multiple key factors. A connectivity solution needed to be strong enough to carry across the wide facility, suited for an outdoor environment but with the strength to reach the various indoor structures, and robust enough to support the nursery’s current operations as well as scale for potential automation in the future.
The Solution: GXC’s Private 5G Network
Motive and GXC designed a solution specifically for the Kraemer’s Nursery grounds. This solution consisted of a Private 5G NR O-RAN network, built on GXC’s Onyx platform. The other option would be setup with hundreds of Wi-Fi access points, public cellular, and point-to-point mesh Wi-Fi; this new design features just two access points (AP1 and AP2), with each antenna driving two base sector antennae.
GXC’s 4×4 MIMO radio technology allowed for greater capacity, improved coverage, and the ability to cover a wider area with fewer radios compared with the 2×2 MIMO offered by the major competitors—greatly reducing the overall infrastructure requirements for the deployment.
A simpler infrastructure in turn proved more manageable for the nursery’s workforce. With many employees working on a seasonal basis, Kraemer’s is frequently onboarding and training new staff members. The secure network allows for devices to easily be provisioned and managed in-house, reducing complexity for employees and the teams providing technical support, particularly when dealing with language barriers in the training process.
The in-house management and streamlined setup proved to be crucial for Kraemer’s. Tim O’Connor, the nursery’s Information Technology manager, comes from a distinguished IT background with over 30 years of technical experience, and wanted to have a hands-on role in the installation process. GXC’s simple and streamlined deployment allowed Tim to take a greater role in that process, while also significantly reducing installation costs.
The system was fully set up within just one week, minimizing operational delays in the transition. The nursery’s network is now fully operational, simple enough to be seamlessly utilized by the nursery’s large employee base while meeting the technical standards of an expert with decades of experience.
Results
The deployment has greatly improved with operational efficiency throughout the greenhouse operation. Reliable connectivity is now established across the full property, and processes such as inventory tracking, order pooling, labor pooling now have the support of a secure, reliable, and easy-to-manage private network that is primed to support new technologies in the future.
Looking Ahead to New Opportunities
This private network has addressed Kraemer’s connectivity concerns in the present, while also setting up for future success.
The quick, successful deployment of this network has ensured that the nursery can operate at peak performance, without any lapses in coverage or connectivity. The nursery’s peak season occurs each year between the months of February and May, during which they generate nearly 90% of their annual revenue. With an efficient install and several months’ lead time ahead of this crucial time for the business, the team at Kraemer’s Nursery will be well-equipped to thrive during this period.
The property is now also in a prime position to introduce new and emerging technologies. The Kraemer’s team anticipates automation playing a significant role in their operations in the coming years, and a strong connectivity infrastructure will support these new initiatives.
This deployment greatly improved Kraemer’s Nursery’s connectivity, while greatly simplifying its infrastructure in the process. With reliable connectivity established across all 450 acres, Kraemer’s Nursery is ready to see its operations flourish, and support the growth of new initiatives for years to come.
See the loop video here.
