B.H.E. Vanthoor

The Systematic Design of Greenhouse Crop Production Systems

Protected cultivation systems are used throughout the world as a powerful instrument to produce crops. They protect the crops from unfavorable outdoor climate conditions and pests and offer the opportunity to modify the indoor climate to create an environment that is optimal for crop growth and production, both in terms of quality and quantity. Designing protected cultivation systems is a multi-factorial optimization problem. During this process, choices have to be made with respect to construction, cladding material, climate conditioning equipment, energy sources and management, growing substrates, water and nutrient supply, internal logistics and labour, to mention a few. All of these choices mutually influence each other and are influenced by local boundary conditions like climate, economics, market, legislation and availability of resources. This paper presents the outlines of a systematic design methodology to design protected cultivation systems including several design examples of modern greenhouses production systems.