Grant: Applied Research Tools and Instruments Grants

Over the past several decades, Canada's agriculture industry has seen the rise of environmentally-controlled greenhouse and indoor (artificial lights) agriculture production systems. In Nova Scotia, these type of agricultural production systems contribute over 20 million dollars a year, representing 10% of its agriculture economy. Furthermore, as commercial cannabis production has recently been legalized and the demand to obtain fresh local produce surges, the economic contribution of environmentally-controlled agricultural production systems is expected to rise. To help this industry grow and expand in the province, identifying optimal environmental conditions (CO2, temperature, nutrients, and light) for crop photosynthesis is needed to improve yields and product quality. The issue for producers is that optimal environmental conditions for photosynthesis are based on recommendations created from research investigating single environmental factor impacts on crops, not taking into consideration that environmental factors interact to affect the ability of crops to photosynthesize, which in turn will impact yields and produce quality. Thus, when producers don't consider how environmental factors interact to have plant photosynthesis, producers may not be providing optimal growing conditions for the crop because the interaction among environmental factors are impacting the ability of the crop to photosynthesize. On the other hand, due to these interactions producers may also be providing environments that needlessly waste resources (exceed environmental conditions) that don't result in increased crop yields or quality. As a result, there is a need to investigate how different environmental conditions interact to affect crop photosynthesis in an environmentally-controlled setting in order to improve production efficiency, increase crop produce quality, as well as minimize costs. To conduct this research, Nova Scotia Community College's Environment and Agriculture Technology Lab is requesting a photosynthesis meter to offer a unique research opportunity currently not available in the region.