Canada's Organic Science Cluster

Activity C.5: Development of an organic greenhouse growing system for tomato that improves energy use efficiency and reuses the crop effluent as nutrient solution

Improve nutrient soil retention and nutrient plant use efficiency for organic greenhouse crops;
Adjust the irrigation management and fertilisation under a recirculation system with or without treatment using wetlands;
Evaluate the efficiency of biochar on soil nutrient availability, plant productivity, plant disease tolerance, and soil biological activity;
Improve fruit yield as well as gustatory and nutritional attributes based on cultural management (intercrop, irrigation and nutrient availability);
Improve energy use efficiency by reaching yields similar to conventional growing system;
Recycle crop effluents in order to have zero nutrient emissions in the environment;
Evaluate the efficiency of biochar as a filtering medium to reduce the charge in nutrients (especially N, P, SO4 and Na) of greenhouse effluents and green house gas emission (N2O);
Evaluate the efficiency of different plant species (Phragmites australis, Typha latifola, Iris versicolor and fern) implanted in wetlands to reduce the charge in nutrients (especially N, P, SO4 and Na) of greenhouse effluents;
Evaluate the efficiency of different plant species (Phragmites australis, Typha latifola, Iris versicolor and fern) implanted in wetlands to reduce the presence of pathogens (Pythium spp., Fusarium spp., Clavibacter michiganensis and nematodes) in greenhouse effluents;
Evaluate the profitability of the proposed organic growing system compared to a conventional growing system.