How Paweł Kida Turned a High-Risk Cultivation Bet into Mularski's Best Season on Record

Mularski is one of Poland's largest greenhouse producers, operating over 45 hectares across multiple sites in northern and southern Poland. The company grows tomatoes and cucumbers year-round, using advanced lighting and climate technology throughout their facilities.

Challenges

Last season, Head Grower Paweł Kida identified an opportunity to push further: stop shading the roof, raise 24-hour temperature setpoints, and increase leaf density from 15 to 20 leaves per stem. His theory: more leaves at higher heat drives faster truss development, with simpler trusses that are easier to manage.

Internal resistance on strategy changes. The rest of the team saw risk. Colleague growers, the labour manager, and IPM colleagues raised concerns, and without hard evidence at this scale, the strategy was difficult to defend. "I wanted to prove the others wrong, those who thought I had messed up by pruning differently," Paweł says.

Limited yield, whilst labor costs and waste were high. The existing approach had real costs: complex truss structures meant high pruning effort and consistent crop waste averaging 5% of total fruit.

How Source Cultivation Management Helped

Paweł used Source Cultivation Management to run this experiment across 12 hectares with a clear view of the state of the crop. Source Cultivation Management lets growers define a cultivation plan (like expected flowering speed, fruit set, and fruit weight development) and automatically compare real plant observations against it every day.

Catching deviations before they compound. If fruit weight was drifting or fruit set falling behind plan, the KPI indicators in Source flagged it early. If they stayed on track, Paweł knew he could keep pushing. "With the data, I don't have to guess. I can see it's working."

Showing the numbers. Every Tuesday, Paweł brought the Source data to the team meeting. Fruit set had risen from 60 to 80 fruits per week. The numbers settled the argument.

Results

+25% weekly fruit production within a single 4-week optimization cycle. The 12-hectare facility hit 200 tonnes per week (~1.66 kg/m²) — an all-time production record for the site. 80% reduction in crop waste, from 5% to 1%. The simplified truss structure (down from 14 to 12 fruits per truss) created fewer elements to manage, reducing discarded product and improving fruit quality. Improved pruning labor efficiency across the full 12 hectares. Less truss complexity freed the team from higher pruning efforts, lowering labor costs and creating capacity for other cultivation tasks. Best practices transferred to other sites, including one 400 km away. Because the full strategy was documented and tracked in Source, Mularski applied the same cultivation plan across locations. This means repeatable results, without relying on one person's memory.

+25%

Weekly fruit production

80%

Reduction in crop waste

Hectares

400km

Across

Scaling the Win Across Sites

Beyond the results themselves, Mularski left the season with a blueprint.

Because the full strategy was documented and tracked in Source throughout the season, it could be transferred. Mularski applied the same crop plan to their other sites, including one 400 km away. The growers there had access to the same plan, the same benchmarks, and the same early-warning logic.

For a business managing multiple locations, strong cultivation decisions become repeatable across sites and teams.

The Takeaway

Paweł Kida's experiment worked because deep cultivation knowledge and real-time verification reinforced each other. Source gave him the evidence to act on his expertise at scale, and to bring the rest of the team along with him.