The Twenty First Century Greenhouse

Thursday 15 October 2009

Whilst Unigro maintains that the GroDome is environmentally sustainable and offers the best-controlled environment in the market place, nobody’s perfect – there’s always room for improvement. If the “Mark ll GroDome”, which has precise environmental control and high levels of containment, could provide additional services and facilities, which of the following do you think would have most impact on commercial growers and researchers worldwide? 1. The ability to collect solar energy as a bi-product of growing fresh produce, which would be sufficient to run the facility and be a net exporter of energy to the grid 2. The ability to extract water from the internal and ambient atmosphere of the greenhouse, which would be sufficient for irrigation requirements. Let Unigro know your thoughts and any other wish list requirements for the 21st Century Greenhouse.

Comments

davidjjames - 03/11/2009 23:26:52

Direct answer is that both 1 and 2 are and will continue to be equally important in emphasising the sustainability component of the 21st century greenhouse. These are however background components that will help in the more widespread acceptance and use of GroDome technology. Of more direct concern are improvements in the functional aspects of design that will help in the growth and harvesting of the producing unit i.e. the plant. The first generation technology only permitted static growth conditions in pots. In terms of harvesting it will be important to have a more dynamic system where plants are automatically moved within the growing area for both uniform exposure to prevailing eco-physiological conditions and perhaps more importantly for initial harvesting. Automated moving systems currently employed by the horticultural industry should be examined, and modified for GroDome application.
The Grodome also needs modification making it possible to adopt soiless culture options such hydroponics. More recent research has shown that such systems can be used to induce roots to secrete plant proteins directly into a liquid environment thereby removing both the need to handle large amounts of spent compost and to harvest the ‘above ground’ parts.

If physical harvesting of plant parts is envisaged initial designs need to be drawn up for how harvesting areas can be sited most efficiently for further processing e.g. extraction and purification of plant parts. Systems have already been designed for isolation of valuable biopharmaceuticals by corporates such as Bayer via biotech organisations such as Icon Genetics by aligning the growth and harvesting of plants with high tech isolation and purification of plant compounds. This means single Grodome sites for growing, harvesting, isolating and purifying of plant compounds.

In terms of improvements in provision of environmental variables some way needs to be found to compromise the need to harvest solar energy with the need to replicate ideal photoperiods for the control of both vegetative growth and flowering.

It will be important for Unigro representatives to visit current contained plant growth technologies used in places like Germany and the USA. Whilst they do not have the sophistication of the Grodome they are actively manufacturing valuable plant macromolecules using less efficient growth units.

364 words


David J James, Empharm Ltd, Kent
November 2009

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