Certificate of Greenhouse Management

Unit 1 – Types of greenhouses

• Types of greenhouses
• Greenhouse designs for commercial nursery production
• Venlo
• Wide-span or multi-span
• Mansard
• Plastic clad tunnels/igloos
• Sawtooth
• Single-span greenhouses
• Retractable roof greenhouse
• Greenhouse construction methods and materials
• Framing materials
• Covering materials
• What type of greenhouse is appropriate for your nursery?
• Siting greenhouses
• Greenhouse benching
• What can you grow?
• Environmental control in greenhouses
• Plant needs
• Environmental factors affecting plant growth
• Environmental controls
• Natural light
• Growing media
• Temperature of air
• Moisture and misting
• Moisture and fog
• Computerised environmental control
• Intelligent environmental controllers

Unit 2 – Growing systems and equipment

• How to grow plants
• Soil culture
• Soilless culture
• Nutrient formulations
• Fertiliser salts for formulations
• Formulas for different systems
• Types of formulations
• Measuring conditions inside a greenhouse
• Weather sensors
• Climate sensors
• Water sensors
• Nutrition sensing
• Environmental control systems
• Thermostats and timers
• Analog ‘step’ controller
• Computer zone controllers
• Integrated computer control (ICC)
• Getting plants to flower out of season
• Types of flowering response to temperature
• Ways to cause controlled flowering
• Principles affecting rates and progress of flowering
• Applied flowering control

Unit 3 – Pest and disease management in greenhouses

• How to stop pests & diseases entering the greenhouse
• Greenhouse hygiene
• Methods of disease introduction
• Detecting and controlling pests & diseases in the greenhouse
• Scouting and recording
• Action threshold
• Sanitation
• Disease-free plants
• Screening
• Weed control
• Cultural control
• Biological control
• Chemical control
• Insect growth regulators
• Biorational pesticides
• Root media pasteurisation
• Common greenhouses diseases
• Fungi, bacteria and viruses
• Disease control
• The root environment
• The aerial environment

Unit 4 – Temperature management

• Temperature influence on growth and development.
• Sensing temperature
• Cooling
• Heating
• Temperature control in a greenhouse
• Methods of temperature control
• Temperature control using natural ventilation
• Temperature control using heating
• Heat loss
• Calculation of heat loss
• Leakage loss
• Heating systems
• Localised heating systems
• Unit heaters
• Convection heaters
• Electric heaters
• Radiant heaters
• Solar heaters
• Composting organic matter
• Soil or bench warming units
• 2) centralised heating system
• Ventilation systems

Unit 5 – Water management

• Greenhouse irrigation and objectives
• Soil and water types
• Gravitational water
• Capillary water
• Hygroscopic water
• Estimating water
• Irrigation systems
• When to irrigate
• Nursery irrigation program
• Irrigation practices
• Plants and water
• Water deficiency symptoms
• Equipment and methods
• Automatic systems
• Sprinklers and overhead spray lines
• Flood benches
• Capillary benches
• Capillary watering
• Trickle irrigation
• Watering container plants
• Pulse watering
• Seep hose and watering cans
• Precision application techniques
• Cyclic watering
• Scheduling irrigation
• Water supply and quality
• Maintenance of watering systems

Unit 6 – Nutrition management

• Irrigation and nutrition control
• Liquid feed systems
• Injection and displacement liquid feed systems
• Nutrient management
• Considerations for fertilising greenhouse crops
• Controlled-release fertilisers (CRF)
• Water soluble fertiliser
• Slow release fertiliser

Unit 7 – Managing light

• Importance of lighting in a greenhouse
• Quality of light
• Light intensity
• Length of the day (photoperiod)
• Artificial lighting
• Measuring light
• Controlling light in the greenhouse
• Light increase
• Reducing light intensity
• Blackout and shading
• Paint-based shading compounds
• Reflectors
• Photoperiod manipulation
• Growth rooms
• Efficient lighting control

Unit 8 – Managing gases

• Airflow
• Carbon dioxide enrichment
• Supplemental co2
• Sources of co2
• Control of co2 level
• When to start supplementation
• Pollutant gases
• Temperature control systems (ventilation)
• Mechanical ventilation
• Natural ventilation
• Fans and vents
• Evaporative cooling
• Air circulation
• Humidity control
• Fog systems

Unit 9 – Automation and robotics applications for greenhouse production

• Automation in vegetable nurseries
• Automation systems
• Remote sensing
• Direct method
• Computerised environmental controls
• Robots
• Drones
• Cloud IOT-based monitoring system
• Wireless sensor network
• Components of wireless sensor networks
• Structure of wireless sensor network
• Star (single point-to-multipoint) network
• Mesh network (advantages and disadvantages)
• Hybrid network
• Data logging
• Data gathering in WSN
• Automating irrigation techniques