ISHS Acta Horticulturae 559: V International Symposium on Protected Cultivation in Mild Winter Climates: Current Trends for Suistainable Technologies
MODELLING FOR PRESENT PRODUCTION PROBLEMS IN GREENHOUSE HORTICULTURE IN MILD WINTER CLIMATES |
| Author: | HUGO Challa |
| Keywords: | simulation, crop growth, greenhouse horticulture, potential production, Almerķa, yield gap analysis |
| Abstract:
Protected cultivation in mild winter climates is facing many and highly diverse problems. They range from over-production and reduced market prices, environmental problems and associated legislation, labour supply and information requirement, to more detailed ques-tions regarding production methods and techniques. To scientists models are a valuable tool to investigate these type of problems. Models have been developed to investigate the crop and its interaction with the greenhouse, with the soil and with pests and diseases. Simplified models of these sub-systems have been aggregated and used to investigate problems at the level of whole nurseries and even whole countries. These studies are important to obtain insight in the behaviour of systems, insights that are valuable to pro-vide recommendations to growers, manufacturers, growers organisations and policy mak-ers. Examples are yield-gap analysis and explorations at the level of nurseries and regions with respect to environmental and economic performance. A short overview is given of models and model types that are used in protected cultivation and related to the systems and sub-systems that they describe. The distinction be-tween a model and an application is stressed. Potential target groups for the development of model applications are considered within the frame-work of protected cultivation in mild winter climates. For growers two potential lines for model applications are considered: automatic control and decision support. Model based automatic control could be feasible for climate control (CO2, humidification and ventilation control) and for irrigation. With an increasing em-phasis on the duration of the growing season and on the production of high quality prod-ucts, there will be an increasing demand for such systems. For decision support systems the prospects might to be less promising for the near future, although isolated, frequently occurring problems could probably benefit from model based support. In conclusion, models could, and probably will, play a significant role in the development of protected cultivation in mild winter climates, especially in facilitating and supporting research, as will be illustrated with some examples, such as a yield-gap analysis for to-mato production in the Almerķa region. | |
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