RII’s 2023 ‘Benchmarking Report’ showed that some CEA facilities are capable of achieving the oft-repeated savings of 90% of the water that field production of food requires. This webinar will discuss how this was done, including reducing water use while remediating irrigation and other water streams for recycling. Topics will include smart irrigation, leak/waste reduction, water recapture and storage, rainwater capture, condensate recapture, and an update on proven water disinfection and purification technologies. Growers of any size or level of technology will takeaway recommendations they can put into practice immediately while also planning for a climate-smart future.
| Getting Started in Water Circularity: How To Really Achieve 90% Water Savings (13.2 MB) | Download | ||
Rob has over 30 years of experience in plant growth facility management, plant research and commercial production. At Purdue University, he brought online and managed a computer- controlled 40,000 ft 2 research facility, made up of 25 greenhouses and over 60 growth chambers and grow rooms. He was responsible for hundreds of CEA studies involving flowering, food and medicinal species. He served on design teams for greenhouse projects and one of the first automated machine-vision phenotyping centers in the country. In his consulting role, he supported major hydroponic produce growers AeroFarms and Bright Farms; Big Ag companies Dow AgroSciences, Novozymes and Indigo Ag; and several cannabis operations including Clade9. He wrote cultivation plans for cannabis licenses awarded in Missouri and West Virginia.
Rob’s protocols for optimizing greenhouse production have been downloaded over 70,000 times in 104 countries. He participated in the publication, A Practical Guide to Containment: Plant Biosafety in Research Greenhouses, recognized throughout the world as a primary resource for safe production of genetically modified crops. In 2016, he was a member of the International Committee for Controlled Environment Guidelines that published Guidelines for Measuring and Reporting Environmental Parameters for Experiments in Greenhouse Facilities, the seminal document of quality assurance protocols for plant science research.
In his free time, Rob enjoys gardening, growing microgreens under LEDs, baking and winning croquet matches against his three grown children.
Andy joined Grodan in 2000 as a crop consultant for Western Europe. Over the years the role and its market focus evolved taking him to Grodan customers in Asia Pacific, North America and East Europe. He now leads Grodans knowledge program.
Andy is a regular speaker at industry conferences and grower events. He has published numerous research reports as well crop technical articles which have appeared in horticultural trade magazines throughout the world. Andy’s unique position allows him to stay close to the leading edge developments within CEA in Europe. He represents Grodan in its wider knowledge generation program within collaborative government / industry funded projects. In 2009 Andy founded and still chairs the “Green Expert Platform” – a knowledge exchange forum for internationally recognised greenhouse crop consultants and industry specialists.
