Greenhouse

Doctorate student Bram Vanthoor of Wageningen UR Glastuinbouw has developed a method of calculation to design greenhouses better suited to local circumstances. The method has been tested for the Netherlands and Spain. During the tests two different greenhouse designs were built fully in line with the local situation. The method offers the possibility to optimise greenhouse building worldwide. Vanthoor will defend his thesis on Friday 17th of June.

Solar greenhouses have played a vital role in China's agricultural scene for years. New innovations in greenhouse design are allowing growers to produce more varieties of vegetables, even during long winter months. In a recently published report Chinese scientists called solar greenhouses "the most important type of infrastructures for growing horticultural crops in China." The team of researchers from the College of Agronomy and Biotechnology at China Agricultural University presented an extensive report on single-slope solar greenhouses in a recent issue of HortTechnology. Based on 20 years of systematic studies, the report noted: "Increased proliferation of efficient solar greenhouses in China may contribute to solving worldwide problems such as the energy crisis and global climate change."

Due to it's lack of water and climate Oman has great potential for greenhouse farming. The Ministry of Agriculture is supporting agriculture practices which use less water.

Existing greenhouses will be modernised and high water use crops will be relocated, possibly to western Oman in the large region between Thumrait and Muqshin north of the Salalah crescent.

By SAIF MALIK, 14:13 20 March 2010

In the upcoming billions of years, it will be obligatory for the humans to migrate to other planets because of expected nuclear wars, and furthermore the sun will become too hot for Earth to carry on life. In this context, Mars is ideal with an environment appropriate for human colonization and potential for modification into a stable ecosystem in the far future.

Picture Source: asc-csa.gc.ca

As a result of human colonization on Mars, it is obvious that these colonies can not be totally dependent on Earth for life support especially with relations to the food perspectives. The concept of greenhouse used on Earth to provide a confined space maintained at desirable environmental conditions for plant growth, can be extended to applications on the surface of Mars also. Furthermore, the psychological benefits associated with the sensory value of fresh food and of cultivating plants make greenhouses important components of manned missions to Mars.

ECO conscious youngsters in Pill have built themselves a greenhouse - out of hundreds of recycled plastic bottles.

Fifteen members of the Pill Resource Centre youth drop in group have been working on the project to build the greenhouse since October.

The teenagers collected 1500 bottles to make the greenhouse, carrying out door to door collections around the village and taking them out of the recycling collection bins.

By ScienceWise

Owen Atkin is attempting to understand plant respiration under elevated levels of carbon dioxide.

How will our plants grow in a greenhouse future? It’s projected that our atmosphere will contain elevated levels of carbon dioxide (CO2). Carbon dioxide is essential for plant growth, so does having more of it around mean plants will grow faster? And if they do, will they absorb greater amounts of carbon from the atmosphere?

The answers to these deceptively simple questions have massive implications for agriculture and our understanding of climate change. Plant scientists in the Research School of Biology (RSB) (in collaboration with partners at the University of Western Sydney) are attempting to throw more light on these issues by studying how trees respire when raised in an atmosphere of the future. This is achieved by growing a whole tree in a massive transparent tent – a Whole Tree Chamber – in which CO2 is present in concentrations expected to be experienced in 50 to 60 years time.

By Gavin McEwan, Horticulture week

It provides food crops for zoo animals, but could a multi-storey cropping system provide the solution to feeding millions of humans too?

A zoo may sound like the last place you would expect to find cutting-edge horticulture. But Paignton Zoo Environmental Park in Devon is pioneering what it describes as a "revolutionary" system to maximise crop yields in a tight space, which could open the door to large-scale "high-rise" growing worldwide.

Far from being a food spoiler, the fluorescent lighting in supermarkets actually can boost the nutritional value of fresh spinach, scientists are reporting. The finding could lead to improved ways of preserving and enhancing the nutritional value of spinach and perhaps other veggies, they suggest in a study in ACS' bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Gene Lester, Donald J. Makus, and D. Mark Hodges note that fresh spinach is a nutritional powerhouse, packed with vitamin C, vitamin E, folate (a B vitamin), and healthful carotenoid antioxidants. Supermarkets often display fresh spinach in clear plastic containers at around 39 degrees Fahrenheit in showcases that may be exposed to fluorescent light 24 hours a day. Lester, Makus, and Hodges wondered how this continuous light exposure might affect spinach's nutritional value.

This spring, engineering student group Footprint Design plans to begin construction on a solar powered greenhouse.

One of the focuses of this greenhouse is food production.

“Right now, more than 90 per cent of the food that we eat in Saskatchewan is imported from other places and probably all of that is imported using fossil fuel transportation. We need ways to eat food locally,” said Footprint Design co-chair Steffen Bertelsen, who has studied solar greenhouse design.

“Solar greenhouse design utilizes solar storage of heat and uses environmentally friendly materials. It’s very possible to grow fruits and vegetables year-round without fossil fuels. These greenhouses require less than 10 per cent of the heating costs of normal greenhouses.”

State Secretary of Agriculture Douglas H. Fisher is encouraging all agricultural operations to recycle the plastic used in their businesses.

The state Department of Agriculture's year-round nursery and greenhouse film-recycling program is entering its 14th year. This type of film is used to cover greenhouses for environmental control and hoop houses for over-wintering of nursery material.