FOREWORD

With pride we present to you the Proceedings of Greensys2004

Judging from the enthusiastic response of the participants, we feel that we have succeeded in our intention to encourage the disciplinary and interdisciplinary exchange of ideas amongst engineers and crop scientists. This is also reflected in the proceedings, which can be seen as a survey of the state of the art in the development of sustainable greenhouse systems.

The conference was held in Leuven, Belgium, in conjunction with the biannual general conference of the European Society for agricultural Engineers (AgEng2004). This enabled joint activities and the possibility for all participants to join sessions in either conference. Greensys2004 covered topics on Greenhouse design, Energy saving strategies, Crop tolerance, Greenhouse Climate Control, Sensors in Horticulture, Automation, Cultivation and Environment (Ace-Sys) and Life Support Systems in Space. Sustainability was the overall connecting theme for all topics.

Upon arrival at the conference the participants already received the preliminary papers of both Greensys2004 and AgEng2004 on CD-ROM. The final refereed papers are presented in this issue of Acta Horticulturae. The editors like to express their gratitude to all referees for their kind assistance. Due to their efforts the quality of these proceedings has improved considerably.

We hope these proceedings will contribute to the sustainable development of greenhouse crop production systems.

The Editors