Stuart Lambie - The potential for global water and resource savings

The potential for global water and resource savings in greenhouse production Stuart Lambie Sustainability Manager, Grodan Group GreenTech, June 13th, 2018

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Contents

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Global challenges

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Horticultural Impacts

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How soilless systems can help

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1 Global Challenges

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United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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Soilless growing – impacts on UN SDG’s

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Water scarcity and protection Less than

1%

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of

Earth’s fresh water is available for man

70% of extracted water is used in irrigated agriculture All

217 Global lakes in a UNEP /ILEC study* had higher levels of eutrophication than 50 years ago * http://www.ilec.or.jp/en/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Vol.3.pdf Part of the ROCKWOOL Group

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2 Horticultural impacts

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Some trends driving improvements in water use efficiency

Zero emission of water and fertilisers from greenhouses by 2027

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Continuing global expansion in soilless systems Urbanisation and vertical farming.

Source: ir. Ellen Beerling, Wageningen university & Research

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Water use efficiency 1 Kg 60 litres

22 litres 10 litres 4 litres

Open field Production, Spain

Glasshouse no drain water recycling

Glasshouse + drain water recycling

Zero emission glasshouse, using inert substrate

Sonneveld and Voogt. Plant nutrition of greenhouse crops.

Van Os 2011. Less emission through application new cultivationsystems Part of the ROCKWOOL Group

4 Global resource saving potential

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Estimating crop water consumption and water use efficiency

 Climate zone Insert picture here  Crop  Hectares

Yield

Kg/m

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 Growing system

Efficiency

 Comparison with other systems

Litres /Kg Part of the ROCKWOOL Group

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Calculating resource savings The challenge: create a calculation model which can….

• Calculate based on resource use efficiency in various climate zones • Allow comparison with different soil based systems • Choose between free draining and recirculating stonewool systems • Allow choice of drain percentage • Make calculations based on the peer reviewed research data Part of the ROCKWOOL Group

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Calculating resource savings – example output sheet

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Estimated global savings from Grodan soilless systems

Land saving equal to

300 Central Parks

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90

Million

litres

In 2017

Grodan products for tomato and cucumber production used an estimated 90 million litres less water, compared to soil production of an equivalent tonnage of food

Enough to supply

85

thousand

people, with drinking water for one year

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Conclusions

Global controlled environment horticulture has a great story to tell Insert picture here

 Nutritious fresh produce  Very high resource use efficiency

 Less water  Fewer minerals  Less land Part of the ROCKWOOL Group

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Questions?

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Thank you

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