This session sponsored by      

Stephen Duff
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food & Rural Affairs 

The Business of Farming

Stephen Duff, chief economist, OMAFRA, will speak about farm income tax, your farm business registration number and other key aspects of your farm business. 

Melanie Yelton
Plenty

Indoor Farming - Why, Where, When!

Indoor farming is necessary because the existing food supply chain is vulnerable, strained, and unsustainable and requires a new agronomic approach in which growers must reconsider traditional plant management assumptions. To ensure that indoor farming will ultimately be profitable, fulfilling the promise of efficient resource use, we must continuously evaluate the way we farm indoors. Indoor or vertical farming is here to stay. To what extent it will complement traditional farming remains to be seen. In the meantime, indoor growing presents a novel form of food production, and agriculture as we know it is entering a new age! Plenty has invested more than 400 million dollars in plant science and engineering research to create the ideal plant growth platform making it possible to grow anywhere in the world.

Air Flow and its impact on Vertical Farming 3.0

A deep dive into the importance of understanding airflow dynamics in CEA and its impact on common grow platforms and their ability to truly scale. Key areas of focus will include the necessity of removing spent air at the source, the consequences of restricted airflow within an indoor grow, and understanding the impact of poor air flow designs on VPD (Vapour Pressure Deficit) using CFD analysis. Wrapping up with a view to Indoor Ag 3.0 featuring multi-Dimensional distributed data acquisition networks, real-time biometric feedback, and the ability to unlock the efficiencies of automation with scale.

Sponsored by   

Edwin Kroon
Lion Lasers

Estuardo Hernández Olesinski
Wageningen University, NL

L.I.G.H.T. Lasers in Greenhouses & Horticulture against Thrips (and other pests)

Sean Somogyvari
Vineland Research & Innovation Centre, ON

Early Detection of Bacterial Canker in Greenhouse Tomato Crops

Early detection would allow growers to identify and treat bacterial canker outbreaks more effectively and reduce losses. Human scouts rely on their eyesight for visual inspection but yet our eyes only see the visible portion of light, whereas specialized cameras can potentially detect disease earlier using non-visible light such as infrared. At Vineland Research and Innovation Centre, we have studied the spectral light responses of healthy and diseased plants. This presentation will summarize our findings so far, which indicate that early detection of bacterial canker on greenhouse tomato crops is possible up to 10 days before it is visible to a human scout.

Zelda Pieterse
Vineland Research & Innovation Centre, ON

Casting a Light on IPM 

Suncor Energy Inc. has developed photosensitizer formulations that cause high mortality rates in common greenhouse pests. These novel, photodynamic insecticides are non-toxic derivates of natural compounds that fit into an ecosystems-approach of growing food more sustainably. Photodynamic insecticides have proven to be as effective as registered synthetic chemical pesticides and can be applied with equipment currently used in greenhouses and in the field. Pieterese reports on trials conducted at Vineland Research & Innovation Centre.

This session will provide a brief overview and walk-through of two new digital tools, created by OMAFRA and hosted on the AgriSuite platform, to support Ontario greenhouse producers.

The Greenhouse Nutrient Feedwater (GNF) tool will help producers prepare a GNF Registration, GNF Document and Record, GNF Strategy, GNF Plan, Land Application Schedule and Record of Land Application, and GNF Transfer Report as part of the legal requirements under the provincial GNF program.

The Greenhouse Gas Calculation tool will help producers identify the greenhouse gas emissions sources and amounts from fuel and energy use, and will identify potential modifications and practices producers can implement to reduce energy use and associated emissions.

In this presentation Tanya Irani will be showcasing the benefits of proactive mitigation, explaining the services offered by Healthy Hydroponics and doing a live demo of their grower’s portal.

The Path to Autonomous Growing: What, Why, When & Where

AI & data based growing has been on the rise. AI can assist and, in some cases, even outperform the top growers. However, most greenhouse operators still do not know whether they are ready to adopt AI, are uncertain how it can help their operation or how it works, leery of the cost and unsure whom to trust. In this talk, we will discuss the path to autonomous growing, and share our experience and lessons learned from our win at the 2022 international autonomous greenhouse challenge organized by Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands to sustainably grow vegetables via fully automated control with the use of AI. The Koidra-led team, Koala, beat 46 teams from 23 countries to become the only AI team in the world that outperformed the Dutch reference growers by 27.8% in net profit with the lowest operation cost and highest energy saving.

This session sponsored by   

Brian Lynch
Vineland Research & Innovation Centre, ON

Can Robots Harvest Greenhouse Bell Peppers?

Characterizing the Light Environment within the Canopies of Eggplant & Mini Cucumber in Ontario Greenhouses

Measurement & Analysis of External Light Emissions from Ontario Greenhouses

Carly Demers
University of Windsor/Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada

Assessing Native Predatory Insects as Novel Biological Control Agents

Jordan Dalicandro
University of Guelph

The Effects of Mild Moisture Stress & Spectral Quality of Supplemental Lighting on the Shelf Life of Four Potted Ornamental Commodities

Laxmi Khadka
Vineland Research & Innovation Centre, ON

Can We Hack Plant Metabolism to Defend Against Thrips?

Ashleigh Ahrens
University of Guelph, ON

What are the Optimal Photoperiods for Inducing Flowering in Different Drug-Type Cannabis Cultivars?