ISHS Acta Horticulturae 797: International Workshop on Greenhouse Environmental Control and Crop Production in Semi-Arid Regions
PLANT STRESS MANAGEMENT IN SEMIARID GREENHOUSE |
| Authors: | S. De Pascale, A. Maggio |
| Keywords: | biotechnology, high temperature, water salinity, carbon dioxide depletion, sustainability |
| Abstract:
Progress in greenhouse technology in recent years has been mainly focused on: 1) the development of high-tech covering materials with an improved light transmittance, 2) the design of efficient cultivation units based on hydroponics technology and 3) the improvement of environmental control systems. Despite the development of these technologies that aim at optimizing the growth environment, greenhouse grown plants in semiarid regions are continuously exposed to multiple stresses that unavoidably cause an inefficient use of the available resources. There is a clear need to firstly define the optimal greenhouse for a specific environment and to secondly define the plant characteristics that would best fit the greenhouse/environment combination for specific plant selection programs. While the first step should rely on cost benefit analyses that would mainly consider energetic and commercial determinants, the second one should be based on the implementation of the most advanced technologies to unravel and functionally modify the complex interactions between the plant physiology and the greenhouse in semiarid environments. In this context, biotechnology and associated technologies certainly offer interesting possibilities to develop advanced models and genetically improved cultivars that use more efficiently the available resource. | |
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