This session sponsored by:      

Cara McCreary
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food & Rural Affairs

Genevieve Marchand
Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada
Harrow, ON

 ToBRFV Symposium Highlights

Oualid Ellouz
Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada

Effective Sanitization to Eliminate Cucumber Green Mottle Mosaic Virus

Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV) transmission may occur by the handling of plants, leaf-to-leaf contact, plant wounds made with cutting tools, farm equipment and chewing insects. This results in fast and easily spread throughout the commercial greenhouse environment resulting in extensive yield losses. CGMMV infection may also affect subsequent crops due to the long-term persistence of the virus on contaminated crop residues, greenhouse hard surfaces and soil or soil-less greenhouse substrates. To help determine potential solutions, a research team led by Dr. Oualid Ellouz developed a management program that utilizes rigorous sanitization and tolerant cucumber varieties to decrease the impact of CGMMV in commercial greenhouse cucumber production. The results of this study has shown that a well-designed sanitization program of cleansers and disinfectants can completely eliminate

Zamir Punja
Simon Fraser University, BC

Powdery Mildew Management on Greenhouse Crops: examples from cucumber and cannabis

Powdery mildews are common and devastating pathogens on greenhouse crops. These obligate parasites invade living host tissues and take up nutrients, reducing photosynthates for host plant growth while also producing mycelium and spores on the leaf surface that are readily spread in the greenhouse environment. Various approaches, as well as environmental management to reduce relative humidity, will be discussed in relation to powdery mildew control on cucumber and cannabis plants.

Roberto Lopez
Michigan State University

Making $ense of Greenhouse Supplemental Lighting: Ornamentals

Considering adding supplemental lighting to your greenhouse, but are unsure of what spectrum and intensity to utilize? In this session, Dr. Roberto Lopez of Michigan State University will show us the plant response to supplemental light intensity and quality in northern greenhouses and the tools you can use to determine the potential return on investment.

Marc van Iersel
University of Georgia

Smart Lighting Strategies: Taking full advantage of the capability of LED fixtures

Getting the right lighting system, combined with a good lighting control system, is critical to maximize profitability. The control and dimming capability of most LED fixtures provides new, and often overlooked, opportunities for better lighting strategies. This presentation will focus on different lighting strategies that can be implemented now. Results from trials with the Candidus lighting control system in commercial greenhouses will be presented and Dr. van Iersel will also give a glimpse of the future and talk about what additional functionality will become available in the next few years. Learn about the benefits of smart lighting control approaches of LED fixtures and what the future will bring.

Sarah Jandricic
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food & Rural Affairs, Vineland

Lights, Insects, Action: Lighting effects on IPM

As supplemental lighting for greenhouse crops becomes more widespread, we still don’t fully understand the potential repercussions of lighting on IPM programs for insect pests. This talk looks at the effects of lighting types (HPS and various LED light mixtures) on natural enemies and mass trapping under different growing conditions. This talk builds on data shared in 2021.

This session sponsored by      

The Hydrogen Integrated Greenhouse Horticultural (HIGH) Energy Project

The energy demand of the Greenhouse Sector is increasing at a rapid rate with phased expansions and major migration to year-round growing.  Central electricity and gas grids are seeing new Greenhouse-slated infrastructure projects fully-subscribed even before completion.  Continued economic expansion of this nationally critical sector will require innovative distributed energy resource (DER) solutions.  The greatest concentration of greenhouses in North America is in Southern Ontario, which is also home to one of the densest regions of established Wind Energy in Canada.  A new joint venture driven by The University of Windsor, Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers, Kruger Energy, and Enbridge Inc. is developing a Project that will illustrate the potential for commercial wind farms to supply electricity and hydrogen to the Greenhouse Sector. Exciting results from Sample Business Cases will be presented, highlighting the economic and environmental opportunities/challenges in bringing clean electricity and hydrogen to the Greenhouse Sector.

Quade Digweed
Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada, Harrow, ON

Advances in Greenhouse Energy Storage

Rob Hanifin
Ludvig Svensson Inc.

Optimize Your Climate & Reduce Energy Consumption with Curtains & Fans

With a worldwide push to adopt renewable energy, one major barrier to adoption is time-of-use. Greenhouses have an opportunity both to take advantage of off-peak energy availability at night, and also leverage storage technologies within the greenhouse. This presentation will explore energy use strategies for greenhouses, new energy storage technologies, and examine energy storage methodologies under testing at Harrow.

No Power Grid, No Problem

As part of a new 97-acre build out, Hacienda North Farms installed a one-megawatt natural gas microturbine integrated with five hundred kilowatts of solar PV to power its greenhouse in Coatsworth, Ontario. This microgrid is an example of how future greenhouses can be installed in areas with limited or no grid power and provide resiliency to operations while reducing carbon emissions without needing other expensive technologies such as energy storage and exhaust aftertreatment.

This workshop sponsored by      

Jason Deveau
Application Technology Specialist,
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food & Rural Affairs

& Friends!

Air-assisted Sprayer Technology
Worth it, or does it blow?

This workshop will run Wed. AM, Wed. PM and Thurs. AM.  There is no cost, but pre-registration is required as space is limited.

The aesthetic value of ornamental plants requires a near-zero tolerance for insect pests, which cause up to 10% of crop losses per season. Controlling them with insecticides is a difficult proposition. Ideally, each combination of canopy morphology, planting architecture, pest and chemistry would have a specific sprayer designed to optimize coverage and efficiency. This is economically unrealistic. Instead, many producers utilize technologies that rely on high water volumes and hydraulic pressures to “drench” targets indiscriminately, which raises humidity, dilutes the products and may not help improve coverage. Air-assisted spraying can be a viable alternative (and an improvement) over these approaches. We will demonstrate where/when this technology may be a good fit.