Top 25 Innovations For Producing Greenhouse Floriculture Crops
Twenty-five years ago, Greenhouse Grower spun out of American Vegetable Grower magazine as its own publication focused on greenhouse floriculture production and markets. We begin our year of fun features with a list of the top 25 most significant innovations that advanced greenhouse crop production.
Twenty leading growers and industry experts helped us rank more than 120 inventions and discoveries in importance on a scale of 1 to 10. While a ranking of 1 was “not important or relevant,” a ranking of 10 was “revolutionary, completely changed the industry.” With the 20 evaluators, the most points an innovation could have received is 200. The innovations were sorted into 14 categories to group related products and concepts together.
1) Plugs
2) Seeders
3t.) Carts/Rolling Racks
3t.) Photoperiod (long days versus short days)
5.) Plant Growth Regulators
6.) Plastic Plug & Liner Trays
7t.) Barcoding
7t.) Internet
9t.) Plant Tags
9t.) Temperature Controlled Transport
11.) Computerized Systems
12.) Liners/Rooted Cuttings
13.) Transplanters
14t.) DIF (manipulating day and light temperature to influence plant growth)
14t.) Electronic Data Interchange
16t.) F1 Hybrids
16t.) Plastic Flats
18.) Chemical Injectors
19.) Gutter-Connected Greenhouse Structures
20t.) Peat Moss
20t.) Tissue Culture
23t.) Insecticides & Miticides
23t.) Water Soluble Fertilizer
25t.) Federal Express/UPS and Other Carriers
25t.) Programmable Booms
25t.) Web Sites
Agree or disagree? Are these the 25 most significant innovations? You can complete the survey yourself. It takes about a half hour. We’ll post the new results in the Jan. 30 edition of Benchrunner.
Click here to participate in the survey.