SFF Project Summary
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Final report
Latest update
Updated:
27 June 2008
Website: www.cropadvice.co.nz
Crop-recording with CropRecord and CropAdvice [259K PDF]
Controlling Plant Growth series:
- No. 5 - Steering plants in generative or vegetative direction [616K PDF]
- No. 6 - Plant management for generative or vegetative steering [871K PDF]
- No. 7 - Steering plant balance by irrigation control [156K PDF]
Energy in Greenhouses
- Part 41 - Temperature strategy in greenhouses: some common pitfalls [196K PDF]
- Part 42 - Humidity control [163K PDF]
Project description
Improved sustainable production of vegetable crops in greenhouses requires a lot of energy for heating, or in fact for maintaining optimal growing conditions (temperature, humidity, CO2 concentration). Fuel accounts for about 20% of the production costs, and this is increasing as energy costs rise. Greenhouse growing has a high input (energy, fertilisers, labour, and capital) and high output: greenhouse crops produce 10-20 times more tonnes per ha per annum than any outdoor crop. The high input is necessary to secure the high output of consistent high-quality high-value products to capitalise on the high investment.
Reducing the energy input in greenhouses is addressed by a current SFF project (03/158). Guaranteeing improved sustainable production of greenhouse-grown vegetables without increasing the energy input is the aim of the project proposed here. This is possible, because most NZ growers achieve less than 60-70% of the top production overseas (while growing conditions there are not as good as here). Improved production can be achieved by improved crop management and improved control of fertilisation & irrigation, growing conditions, and pests & diseases. These are all directly linked to efficient but effective input of energy for environment control.
The issue/opportunity
Six selected greenhouse growers will do intensive monitoring and will in turn receive comprehensive guidance from a horticultural consultant, Roelf Schreuder of Technolutionz Ltd. Some of these growers also participate in SFF project 03/158. The project will run for 2+ years (July 2005-Oct 2007). The selected crops are tomatoes & capsicums.
This approach is based on four pillars, being regular actions that the
growers undertake:
(1) Weekly 'crop recording', which is an intensive system of measuring and
observing plant growth and yield;
(2) Monthly sampling of the nutrient solution, and having these samples analysed
at Hill laboratories in Hamilton;
(3) Ongoing monitoring of development of diseases, pests and beneficial insects
(biological control agents).
(4) Providing data on energy intake to the research team to calculate the energy
consumed (in Megajoule)
The context/background
The outcome of this study will be that (a) growers can pay the energy bill and stay in business, and that the industry survives. (b) The industry will meet the obligations set by the government for improved energy efficiency, and (c) will develop a routine for providing the required energy data to the government.
Methods
The consultant’s role is to provide remote consultancy once a month or on-call and make quarterly visits.
The team’s role is to develop tools for recording crop performance and energy data.
Improved sustainable production of vegetable crops in greenhouses requires a lot of energy for heating, or in fact for maintaining optimal growing conditions (temperature, humidity, CO2 concentration). Fuel accounts for about 20% of the production costs, and this is increasing as energy costs rise. Greenhouse growing has a high input (energy, fertilisers, labour, and capital) and high output: greenhouse crops produce 10-20 times more tonnes per ha per annum than any outdoor crop. The high input is necessary to secure the high output of consistent high-quality high-value products to capitalise on the high investment.
Reducing the energy input in greenhouses is addressed by a current SFF project (03/158). Guaranteeing improved sustainable production of greenhouse-grown vegetables without increasing the energy input is the aim of the project proposed here. This is possible, because most NZ growers achieve less than 60-70% of the top production overseas (while growing conditions there are not as good as here). Improved production can be achieved by improved crop management and improved control of fertilisation & irrigation, growing conditions, and pests & diseases. These are all directly linked to efficient but effective input of energy for environment control.
Six selected greenhouse growers will do intensive monitoring and will in turn receive comprehensive guidance from a horticultural consultant, Roelf Schreuder of Technolutionz Ltd. Some of these growers also participate in SFF project 03/158. The project will run for 2+ years (July 2005-Oct 2007). The selected crops are tomatoes & capsicums.
This approach is based on four pillars, being regular actions that the growers undertake:
(1) Weekly 'crop recording', which is an intensive system of measuring and observing plant growth and yield;
(2) Monthly sampling of the nutrient solution, and having these samples analysed at Hill laboratories in Hamilton;
(3) Ongoing monitoring of development of diseases, pests and beneficial insects (biological control agents).
(4) Providing data on energy intake to the research team to calculate the energy consumed (in Megajoule)
The consultant's role is (5) to provide remote consultancy once a month or on-call and (6) make quarterly visits.
The team's role is to develop tools for recording crop performance and energy data.
The outcome of this study will be that (a) growers can pay the energy bill and stay in business, and that the industry survives. (b) The industry will meet the obligations set by the government for improved energy efficiency, and (c) will develop a routine for providing the required energy data to the government.
Latest update
Improving Sustainable Greenhouse Vegetable Crop Production
This project ran from January 2006 until 31 March 2008. The output is two new unique software products for the greenhouse industry namely CropRecord™ and CropAdvice™, plus a wealth of new information that is easily accessible. Version 2 of CropAdvice & CropRecord are now available for free to greenhouse vegetable growers, consultants and other interested parties in NZ. These software tools will assist growers with improving energy efficiency and profitability of greenhouse crops.
There were two main parts to this project. The first was developing CropRecord (with the input of six growers), and testing it in many real-life greenhouse businesses during two seasons. The second was building CropAdvice website (www.cropadvice.co.nz); compiling new knowledge; distributing that via articles; and incorporating the new knowledge in the website.
CropRecord is a spreadsheet to record and analyse data on crop growth, growing conditions and energy. Crop-recording enables growers to ‘read’ their crop. The systems show them how to steer the crop to increase the production and energy efficiency. CropRecord is programmed for tomatoes and capsicum and (less particularly) for cucumber, and has unlabeled fields for other crops. We made CropRecord self-explanatory, with i-cells containing instructions for how to use CropRecord. The i-cells replace a manual. We thoroughly tested CropRecord to make it robust and user-proof. Growers who have used CropRecord are generally content with how it worked for them. Most growers who use it this season intend to continue with next season.
CropAdvice (version 2) is a website (www.cropadvice.co.nz) containing the newly compiled info on crop management, energy efficiency, plant steering, greenhouse climate control and more. CropAdvice first explains what crop-recording is, why and how to do it, and then provides information that growers need for making decisions on plant steering, greenhouse control, energy use, fertigation, etc. Articles on Energy Efficiency in Greenhouses (related to project SFF 03/158) are presented in CropAdvice as well. The website is protected by a password access system. Maintenance and updating the website are secured for two years from now.
Version 2 of CropAdvice & CropRecord are launched now, well in time for the new growing season (with planting dates varying from May to August). We have prepared an e-newsletter for NZ greenhouse growers. They can order CropRecord and receive it by email or get us to install it. Two new articles were published in the Grower recently, bringing the total to ten articles over the course of the project. A final report is sent to the stake holders
Update April 2008
Three more meetings were held at HortResearch involving the science team and representatives of Olives New Zealand. The focus of the discussions was:
- Orchard design and tree selection and tagging
- Harvest techniques raking v. shaker v. hand picking
- Cultivars: ‘Koroneiki’, ‘Frantoio’ and ‘Leccino’ fruit availability and timing of harvest
- Harvest timing: and fruit development in current season by region
- Oil extraction: A small oil extraction unit has been purchased by HortResearch (Aquarius Ltd) capable of processing 10 kg/h
- Sample size and analysis: peroxide value, free fatty acid, fatty acid content, colour (pigments)
- Sensory analysis and timing
- Oil storage and settling
Tree size and fruit availability are factors to consider when deciding the harvest method. The current production season seems to be ‘not typical’, with small fruit numbers for ‘Frantoio’ and ‘Leccino’ and advanced fruit maturation. In addition, some orchards have small trees and few fruit, so a shaker method will not be practical to apply. In cases like these, raking or hand harvesting methods will be applied.
The oil extraction unit purchased by HortResearch is able to process 10 kg of fruit per hour. Massey University’s “polishing” centrifuge (for removal of residual water) has been set up at HortResearch. Very early season fruit were sourced and oil extraction practice runs have been carried out to familiarise the science team with the extraction process. Small modifications have been made to the unit, such as continuous nitrogen flow during the malaxing stage.
Tree tagging was done on all selected orchards according to experimental design.
Update
Version-one of CropRecord™ (spreadsheet) and CropAdvice™ (website) were completed by May 2007, after intensive testing with help of six growers over a whole year. The growers' input helped a great deal with making the system very practical. Comments from growers who had tested the systems are quoted in an article in the Grower magazine of April 2007.
CropRecord™ and CropAdvice™ were introduced to the greenhouse industry through a series of articles in the Grower, and through seminars held in Auckland (30 May) and Christchurch (21 June 2007). The turn-out to the seminars was very good.
Version-one of CropRecord™ and CropAdvice™ was then installed at tomato and capsicum growers on a semi-industry-wide scale in July/August 2007, in time for the new growing season. Most of the 30+ participating growers use the systems every week and are content with them.
After this first round of installation, we further improved the systems. We just completed version-two of CropRecord™. This has some facilities for crops other than tomato or capsicum, and caters for the recording of daily irrigation data. Some technical features have been added or boosted.
CropAdvice™ was converted to a website. It has got registration and password control to exclude overseas growers. Web-pages on 'Climate' and 'Energy' are being written and uploaded. The new CropAdvice™ website will be launched in December 2007, on www.cropadvice.co.nz.
The project was scheduled to finish in December 2007. We are on target and funding is on track. However, we propose to continue adding new content to the website after its launch, and hence to change the completion date to 31 March 2008.
March 2007
The spreadsheet CropRecord was further refined and is now complete (version 0.8).
- CropRecord can now record and process the following data: crop growth, production, growing conditions, energy, water, nitrogen, while there is a logbook for pests, diseases, IPM and any other features. CropRecord is an aid for improving production and energy efficiency and for archiving data.
- CropRecord (previous version, 0.6) has been trialled by six growers in the past growing season (three tomatoes, three capsicum growers). They are all very content with it (see article in the Grower – April 07), although one is not making optimal use of it due to incompatibility of data and time constraints.
- This latest version of CropRecord is now installed at two growers (both tomatoes), and will be installed at six other growers for use in the new growing season (three capsicum and three tomatoes growers, one of whom converting to cucumber).
- Implementation of a new version required transferring data from the old to the new version.
- The new version of CropRecord contains 'i-cells' with detailed instruction of how to use CropRecord. Developing and writing them required more time than writing a manual, which was initially planned. The idea was that the growers would not read a separate manual but will use the 'i-cells'.
- CropRecord is now robust and as 'user-proof' as is practical. All effort in the last three month was focused on achieving that. The tests of earlier versions by the growers proved that many things can go wrong and needed to be 'protected', 'safe-guarded' or 'hidden'. It also became clear that the data from various climate control computers are very different. This required a more flexible and universal set-up of CropRecord.
- There are now two variations of CropRecord, one for tomatoes and one for capsicums. When CropRecord is installed either one of the two variations is activated.
- CropAdvice (web-like support system)
- CropAdvice is an auxiliary web-like system that growers can use side-by-side with CropRecord. CropAdvice can run on the internet, but the intention is to install it on the hard-drive of growers' PCs, to make it easier accessible. CropAdvice has two parts: one part comprises instructions on how to do crop recording, and the other contains know how on crop management.
- CropAdvice is programmed in DreamWeaver (tool for making websites). DreamWeaver software & licence were purchased, as this was the most economic way, instead of sub-contracting a web designer for all the work. A web designer gave some assistance in the beginning. Having in-house knowledge allows modifying and extending the system when required.
Today, CropAdvice is about 70% operational, and the aim is to have it completed and tested by the end of May, when it will be made available to growers. The work still to be done involves feeding a lot of information into the system, and making it available in an interactive way.
The pages in CropAdvice about 'how to do' are completed. They cover the following:
-
How to install and use CropRecord
-
How to do plant measurements (tomatoes and capsicums)
-
How to measure and record energy use
-
How to record irrigation, drain water use and nitrogen emission
Quarterly Update: October 2006
- The required plant measurements have been defined;
- Six growers have been selected;
- CropRecord is implemented at these six growers;
- Manuals are being developed (one for the crop measurements and one for how to use CropRecord),
- Most info collected for ‘CropAdvice’ (the knowledge-based advisory system).
- Consultant visits the six participating growers every 2-3 weeks on the N.I., and every 6 weeks on the S.I. (since June/August 2006, depending on when crops were planted). This is to test and further develop ‘CropRecord’.
- Discussion with Grodan (international company supplying rockwool & advice). Grodan is one of the businesses that already provide Crop Recording systems of some sort. Their system is only available at high costs for growers using Grodan products. Discussion with this and other businesses is necessary to avoid re-inventing the wheel.
- 2 articles written for the GROWER magazine, under the heading ‘Plant control’.
June 2006
Revised Summary
This project commenced on 1 January 2006, but preparations started in August 2005. This is because the project starting date was delayed outside our control, while the crop was already planted in August 2005. The main activity is crop recording in greenhouse-grown crops, with the aim to enhance the production and improve energy efficiency.
Work completed in the quarter ending 30 June 2006
Bert Houter, recently recruited by Technolutionz Ltd from the Netherlands, is working nearly full-time on the project. Great progress has been achieved on all aspects of it. The plant measurements have been defined; six growers have been selected, CropRecord has been implemented at those growers’ properties, instruction manuals are being developed (one for the measurements and one on how to use CropRecord and the contents for CropAdvice are being collated.
New Season crops are just planted so there are no practical results to report for this quarter.
March 2006
Summary
This project commenced on 1 January 2006, but preparations started in August 2005. This is because the project starting date was delayed outside our control, while the crop was already planted in August 2005. The main activity is crop recording in greenhouse-grown crops, with the aim to enhance the production and improve energy efficiency. Our crop recording system was developed and implemented at Grower 1 (cherry tomatoes). Growing conditions are accurately monitored. A serious problem in climate control was been resolved. Another major problem arose (inadequate growing medium, which was not part of our project) and was resolved too. Grower 1 is very satisfied with the progress so far. Work at Grower 2 (cucumbers) and 3 (capsicum) commenced in February.
Conclusions
- The crop recording system for cherry tomatoes is set up and implemented. It gives reliable information for crop steering.
- In the first crop (only August – November 2005), production increased slightly.
- Nutrient recipes for different stages work well. There was no need for an analysis.
- Cocopeat gave an improvement in plant growth, and reduction in fertilizer use.
- A holistic approach is necessary. Originally, this project would not consider the growing medium, but that turned out to cause problems, which were addressed.
Work completed in the quarter ending 31 March 2006
- Crop recording in 4 ha of tomatoes in South Auckland
- Development of a "crop recording system" for tomatoes
- Commenced writing a manual for "crop recording"
- Writing a two-part article for the GROWER magazine
December 2005
This project commenced on 1 January 2006, but preparations started in August 2005. This is because the project starting date was delayed outside our control, while the crop was already planted in August 2005. The main activity is crop recording in greenhouse-grown crops, with the aim to enhance the production and improve energy efficiency. Our crop recording system was developed and implemented at Grower 1 (cherry tomatoes). Growing conditions are accurately monitored. A serious problem in climate control has been resolved. Another major problem arose (inadequate growing medium, which was not part of our project) and was resolved too. Grower 1 is very satisfied with the progress so far. Work at Grower 2 (cucumbers) and 3 (capsicum) will start in February.
Conclusions
1. The crop recording system for cherry tomatoes is set up and implemented. It gives reliable information for crop steering.
2. In the first crop (only August – November 2005), production increased slightly.
3. Nutrient recipes for different stages work well. There was no need for an analysis.
4. Cocopeat gave an improvement in plant growth, and reduction in fertilizer use.
5. A holistic approach is necessary. Originally, this project would not consider the growing medium, but that turned out to cause problems, which were addressed.
Plans for quarter until 31 March 2006
At Grower 1 (cherry tomatoes, near Pukekohe) crop recording will continue. The aim is optimal crop steering in autumn and minimizing the risk of diseases, mainly Cladosporium and stem Botrytis. All measures combined will increase production.
At Grower 2 (cucumber, near Pukekohe) crop recording will start in February 2006. A recording sheet and background information for cucumbers is being set up.
At Grower 3 (capsicum, N-W Auckland), we are starting preparations.
Recordings will start at three other growers in July, so we will have three in the North Auckland, three in the South Island, covering tomatoes, cucumber & capsicum.
We will start working to develop the crop recording system into a product, and write an article for the GROWER magazine.
