ISHS Acta Horticulturae 396: Hydroponics and Transplant Production
ENGINEERING AND ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS OF SOILLESS GROWING SYSTEMS |
| Author: | E.A. Van Os |
| Keywords: | Growing systems, Substrates, Emission, Automation |
| Abstract:
Soilless growing systems are developed to decrease the excessive spread of soil born pathogens, to improve growth by a better control, to save energy and to increase production and, very recently, to increase a more efficient use of water, nutrients and pesticides to decrease emission to the environment. To fulfil the latter aspect the traditionally open systems are changing to closed systems. Economic aspects delay a further introduction of closed systems. The use of soilless growing systems also make plants independent of the soil. It makes it possible to move the plants and to do planting, maintenance and harvesting at the most suitable place and under optimized labour conditions. The present task is to optimize the growing systems, to minimize the polluting of the environment by the system, to integrate mechanization and to optimize labour conditions realizing a first class quality product at an economic beneficial method. In this presentation a review will be given about the developments in the Netherlands and the results in the last few years. | |
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