Towards a Sustainable Greenhouse: Review of Trends and Emerging Practices in Analysing Greenhouse Ventilation Requirements to Sustain Maximum Agricultural Yield
Cultivation in open fields mainly depends on the location and time of farming, which itself highly depends on the quality and quantity of water for irrigation, weather conditions and soil characteristics. Water resources are highly dependent on the limited freshwater resources from the groundwater system, or rainwater. Countries in MENA (the Middle East and North Africa) rely mostly on desalination technologies for agriculture, due to water scarcity. Therefore, greenhouse (GH) agriculture can be developed to succeed in dealing with the water scarcity and provide sufficient sources of agricultural products as a sustainable solution. These indoor agriculture facilities, which are enclosed by transparent covers, can produce different sources of fruits and vegetables, using a controlled amount of water. By reducing the exchange rate of air with the outside environment, which is known as the confinement effects, greenhouses generate a suitable environment for the plants to grow under transparent covers to trap the sunlight. This raises the inside temperature above the maximum threshold levels, especially within the warm season, due to the high solar radiation intensity, having an adverse influence on the microclimate conditions and consequently the crop growth. In order to sustain maximum agricultural yield, greenhouse ventilation is an important parameter in which its trends and emerging practices were reviewed in this study.