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Quest 2 - Greenhouses

Section outline

  • Quest 2 - Greenhouses

    In this second quest you will unlock a new tool’s module, namely "Inventories"📊! Here You will focus on the residues from greenhouses in the region of Nantes in France and their seasonal distribution. Moreover, You will learn about the problems of managing the bioresidues. But for now, let’s learn a little bit about the types of greenhouses and their characteristics📖.

    • In BRIT's map “Nantes Greenhouses” you can filter by the crop and additional 4 filter options to choose from: heating, lighting, production mode and culture management. Let’s go quickly through all of them:

      -Heating🌡️ of the greenhouses is not necessarily required but it increases efficiency and helps to keep the greenhouses in operation all year round.

      -Lightning💡of the greenhouses promote healthy growth and can increase crop yield. 

      -Production mode: inside of a greenhouse, the plants can be planted into the ground soil. We call that “on ground”. Alternatively, the plants can be placed on tables or platforms, for example potted. We call that mode “above ground”.  

      -Culture management, classic vs high-wire: in a high-wire system, plants keep on growing upwards during the whole season, which is especially preferred in case of cucumbers and tomatoes.

    • Task 1 - Find the difference between greenhouses for cucumbers🥒 vs tomatoes🍅

      In the first task try to find, which types of greenhouses are mainly used for cucumbers and which are for tomatoes. Check their number and the total growth area to compare with the answer at the of the instructions below.
      Instruction for quest 2.1 by Ewa Wronka and Phillipp Lüssenhop (CC BY)

       

       

    • First thing to do is to think about what bioresources do we get from vegetable greenhouse.

      Ok! After a quick introduction to the greenhouses and their characteristics, let’s now focus on the bioresources they produce and go through a little study case📖! 

      First thing to do is to think about what bioresources do we get from vegetable greenhouses🍅🥒.

    • BRIT gives information about the seasonal distribution of those waste for every month. (Inventories)

      From the greenhouses with vegetables, especially tomatoes and cucumbers, the main residues are stems, leaves and of course some other wastage. Can you find this information on the BRIT? Of course you can😃! Additionally, BRIT gives information about the seasonal distribution of those waste for every month. To find this information you need to unlock the second module on the BRIT website: "Inventories"📊. See the instructions below to learn how to find the information about seasonal distribution of greenhouse residues.

    • Instruction for finding the seasonal distribution by Ewa Wronka and Phillipp Lüssenhop (CC BY)

       

       

    • Task 2 - What about seasonal distribution?

      Take a look at the seasonal distribution of greenhouse bioresources. How does it change and why? Why are there so many tomato stems in November, while the cucumber residues are more or less evenly distributed? 

      💡Hint: export the data from all the greenhouses to Excel (in the maps section) and look at the growth cycles.

      Instruction for quest 2.2 by Ewa Wronka and Phillipp Lüssenhop (CC BY)

       

       

    • Remarks about seasonal distribution of green waste.

      Till now, you know about the bioresources from greenhouses and their seasonal distribution🌿🍂. In the previous quests with roadside trees🌳 you have learned one way of managing the bioresources (putting them into the compost or biogas plant⛽💚). Can we apply this idea here as well? Sure, we can but here comes the question. What about seasonal distribution? In November there are a lot of residues, which are highly biodegradable. While in December there are hardly any residues. We can build a biogas plant but there is no continuous flow of residues.

      Note that the same problem occurs with leaves we looked at in Quest 1 as it does with many bioresources. We just swiftly ignored it for simplicity of the first exercise.

    • Task 3 - Problem with non-continuous flow of bioresources 📊

      Think about problems that can occur due to the non-continuous flow of bioresources if we want to create biogas plants and give possible solutions.

      The answers You find in the remarks.

      The problem with noncontinuous supply of bioresources is designing a facility that satisfies the needs for every month. 

      1. One of the possible solutions is designing a bigger facility, based on the month with the highest inflow of bioresources. Thanks to that there won’t be a problem with space. BUT what about the other months, like December where we get hardly any biowastes? The facility would not have enough substrate during the winter. Moreover, building bigger facilities comes with higher investment costs.

      2. Another option is storage of excess substrate. However, greenhouse residues degrade very quickly so it’s not an option for a long period of time. The storage time of the residues could be prolonged by some kind of preservation method, such as cooling or drying, which is energy intensive and not efficient at all. If the local context allows it, another idea is to mix them another dry residue, such as wood chips from unpolluted post-consumer wood waste.

      3. The bioresources could be simply transported to another biogas plant as well, but with transportation comes additional costs and CO2 emissions, which is not a very eco-friendly and cost efficient sollution.

      These are just example answers so maybe You have come up with something else?

      As you can see, when problems in the bioresource management arise, there might be many different ways to approach them. More often than not, each approach has a downside, a tradeoff to the benefit of the solved problem. Which solution is the right one is not possible to answer generally. Instead, it is important to analyse the problem well and also take the context into consideration. Maybe there are other residues in the region that can be used as substrate for a biogas plant, when there are not enough greenhouse residues?

      BRIT is designed to help you with this process by providing and sorting information for stakeholders in a specified region that need to solve problems and want to make well informed decisions.