CRIS Project:Greenhouse and Protected Culture Production Systems for Vegetable and Small Fruit Crops in Tennessee.

2008 Outcomes/Impacts

This was the first year of the research on this project. One significant impact will be that there is now a web page available for growers in the area to find research information on protected culture systems. Relative to impacts the completion of the survey of the number of growers and size of greenhouse operations was done this year. The survey will serve as a base line for measuring the impact of the research completed on this project over the next four years. In the final year of the project we will complete the survey again to see if there has been an increase in protected culture production during the term of this project.  At that point we will determine if this project is useful to continue and if so what changes in direction are needed for the next project.  We have successfully grafted and are currently collecting data on grafted tomatoes in hydroponic production that we will publish in 2009.  This data will potentially influence grower decisions on greenhouse production practices.  Yields of off season greenhouse produced strawberries were demonstrated to be high enough to make this system profitable to growers. This may potentially interest growers in this production system.  The potential yield and quality of medicinal compounds from Silybum marianum was demonstrated. The data collected will have impact on whether this system is economically feasible for growers as a potential greenhouse cropping system. We are also currently training students in greenhouse management at the undergraduate and graduate level.  This student training will provide knowledgeable graduates to work in the growing greenhouse production industry.  One undergraduate student was employed by a new large scale hydroponic lettuce production firm in the summer of 2008 after completing the greenhouse management course and doing a special topic on hydroponic production.  This firm has indicated a need for more trained undergraduate and graduate students to work with their industry.

2008 Research Report

During the first year of this project we had the following three goals: 1) To establish a web page for Protected Culture in Tennessee, 2) To complete a survey of all counties in the state of existing Protected culture facilities (greenhouse and high tunnels), and 3) To complete construction of greenhouses  and establish greenhouse tomato experiments in greenhouses at the Plateau Research and Education Center and on campus. The Web page was posted and we are adding information to it as we complete experiments and make contacts with growers. Part of the web page is a blog to communicate with growers about production issues. The survey was completed and we are currently analyzing the data and will post the data to the web page this year. Construction of greenhouses on campus was completed in September of 2008 we initiated experiments with grafted tomato production in hydroponic systems.  We also completed experiments on fall vs spring production compared to continuous production over a 9 month cycle.   We are currently looking at the production cost and yield data for these systems. This data will be reported in 2009.  The third experiment conducted in 2008 was evaluating the yield of two single plants per pot vs on plant with two stems in a single pot grown in hydroponic systems.  The yield was 20% higher for the two single plants per pot than the single plants with two stems. We are currently looking at the economic comparison of the systems to see what the return to the grower would be for the two systems.  The major experiments for 2009 were initiated in late 2008 and will involve comparison of the impact of rootstocks on tomato yield in hydroponic systems.  We are evaluating four cultivars on five rootstocks to determine the influence of the grafting on yield, quality and disease resistance of tomatoes in greenhouse production.  We also completed greenhouse research on strawberry production in hydroponic systems for the off season.  Yield of over one half pound per plant were achieved in the fall season for some cultivars.  This yield should make strawberry greenhouse production in the off season  economically feasible for growers.   Successful greenhouse production of the medicinal herb Silybum marianum was demonstrated. We are currently evaluating the economic potential for production of silybum in greenhouse systems.