Experts from the UNAM are working on automated greenhouses to optimize the agriculture of vegetables by controlling physical and nutritional variables, such as temperature, radiation, pH, relative humidity, fertigation, and by using bio-fertilizers and bio-fungicides developed by the UNAM.
According to a statement from the UNAM, these variables allowed producers to achieve a sustainable production of 380 to 450 tons per hectare per year in a greenhouse with medium level automation, which is much better than the 225 to 350 tons achieved in a typical commercial greenhouse.
Enrique Galindo Fentanes, a researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology (IBt), announced that the cost decreased from 7.6 to 4.29 pesos per kilogram; water consumption decreased from 30 to 14 liters; germination times went from 28 to 20 days, and the chemical load of fertilizers used per kilogram produced went from 300 grams (in the open field) to 42 grams per kilogram produced.
The control of environmental variables, coupled with good cultural work, prevented the spread of pests and, consequently, the use of pesticides, he said.
This project, said Galindo Fentanes, allowed us to obtain a production of high quality tomato that can be marketed in the domestic and foreign market, with high yields.
Antonio Juarez, a researcher at the Institute of Physical Sciences (ICF), stressed that an instrumented greenhouse increases the innocuous productivity of tomatoes, which allows it to adjust to international measures.
The greenhouse, he said, is equipped with a wet wall and fans for humidification and cooling; it has shade meshes to control solar radiation, and nebulizers to regulate relative humidity; "we developed a system of curtains to regulate the temperature in collaboration with the Dussher company."
These systems depend on sensors that monitor environmental variables such as radiation, temperature, relative humidity, and conductivity / salinity, among others; "If the crop requires less radiation, the shade meshes are automatically closed, and vice versa," he stated.
Meanwhile, he said, bio-fertilizers and nutrients are distributed through an automated irrigation system. The reduction of water consumption was achieved with an improved substrate, which consists of a mixture of tezontle and coconut fiber, designed in the Instituted Trusts Related to Agriculture (FIRA).
Source: Notimex