INTRODUCTION

The content matter of this symposium is particularly important because the glasshouse industry continues to be severely affected by rising costs which are not being met by corresponding increases in commodity prices. Total production costs for early tomatoes have risen from £3.0 per square metre in 1973 to over £7 and £9 in 1976. Prices for tomatoes did not increase accordingly, last year's prices being only 13% up on 1975.

The protected crops industry can only survive by achieving substantial increases in yields and by using new technology to reduce production costs. The Agricultural Institute's research programme in this area is directed towards both these ends and new techniques now under investigation could lead to commercial yields of over 25 kg per square metre.

Programmed production is now an essential feature of the protected cropping industry and the growing medium is at the centre of any production system. Because soil is a variable material growers had been quick to adopt innovations on soil substitutes, such as peat. Four years ago there were only a few acres of commercial peat culture in this country. Now more than half the heated tomato crop - the most important glasshouse crop in Ireland and worth £12 million per annum - is grown in peat. In the future water culture systems seem likely to hold out the possibility for a further degree of control over the rooting medium with more streamlining of cropping systems.