Systemic cultivation can boost results in Chinese wall greenhouses

Worldwide, the acreage of protected agriculture consists of small-scale greenhouses using low levels of technology. Chinese wall greenhouses are a good example of this form of horticulture, and Dutch knowledge and technology can make an important contribution to improving crop results and resource efficiency.

The technical performance of screens, greenhouse climate regulator, water supply unit and other systems of this greenhouse were already highlighted in a previous project using a spring cucumber. According to the criteria of a low-tech greenhouse, this cucumber cultivation went well, but there was a great lack of comparison with results that were realized in China with similar greenhouses.

Systematic cultivation can boost Chinese agriculture
In order to demonstrate the possibilities and to do further research, a consortium of suppliers and research institutions in Bleiswijk constructed a Chinese-style greenhouse. In the project, they closely monitored a tomato crop in a Chinese wall greenhouse in the province of Shandong, and compared it with a similar crop in the similar greenhouse in Bleiswijk.

The project shows that it is also possible for basic greenhouses such as the Chinese wall greenhouse to cultivate systematically. Their analysis shows that the greenhouse in China should be able to produce about 1.5 times as much as was recorded in the winter of 2017. This is mainly possible by accelerating the cultivation in the beginning by sowing earlier and using white soil cover foil.

The project was carried out by a consortium consisting of Ludvig Svensson, Ridder-Hortimax, Hoogendoorn, Delphy and Wageningen University & Research, Business unit Greenhouse Horticulture. The project was supported by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) and the Metropolitan Region Rotterdam The Hague (MRDH).

You can read the entire Wageningen University and Research report here (in Dutch).