Soilless cropping systems for outdoor vegetable production

Clean, efficient and sustainable Workshop Water Management in Horticulture Brussels, 18 March 2015 Janjo de Haan

Outdoor horticulture in the NL

Flower bulbs

Tree nursery crops & flowers

Fruit crops

Field vegetables

Growers initiated research

Growers Challenges

Labour

Regulations

Market requirements

Soil quality & land

Research program

Objective Develop and implement profitable new cultivation systems that can comply with EU-regulations for water quality Outdoor horticulture Duration: 2009-2013, 2014-2017 Execution: Researchers, growers, advisors, suppliers Financed by government, growers and other parties

Program activities

Systematic design, testing and improving of new cropping systems Advice to growers Sustainability assessments Societal aspects

● Consumer perspectives ● Laws and regulations

Together with growers, suppliers, government and NGO’s

Deep flow system Lettuce and other planted leaf crops

Adaptation of floater for leek

Adaptation of flowter for sown leaf crops: baby leafs or spinach

Yield levels

soil bound

deep flow system

factor unit

Leek 65 286 4.4 tons/ha/year

Head lettuce

163 684 4.2 1 000 heads/ha/year

Spinach 52 229 4.4 tons/ha/year

Cauliflower 21 40 1.9 1 000 heads/ha/year

Expected sustainability performance of DF-systems per crop

Leek

Head lettuce Spinace

Cauli-flower

PLANET Water use + + + + Nutrient use and emission + + + + Pesticide use and emission + + + + Land use + + + + Energy use / GHG emissions - - - - PEOPLE Labour need + + + 0 PROFIT Profitability 0/- 0/- - -

Technical issues in development of DF-systems

Disease control ● Microdochium

panattonianum ● Yellow stripe virus

Potyviridae Propagation of plants in

combination with ● Substrate type of

plant plug ● Transplanting plants

Conclusions

Vegetables can be grown sustainable on DF systems ● Large production increase possible ● Potential for large emission reduction to water ● Various growers have started own experiments

Some technical problems still to solve ● Energy use and GHG-emissions ● Diseases ● Propagation system

Market development and spatial planning important aspects for upscaling

Thank you for listening