The Advanced Glasshouse Facility is a flexible and customisable glasshouse permitting bespoke commercially representative testing of plant protection products. It offers reliable trial conditions (ideal for biopesticides), assessment of integrated pest and disease management programmes and commercial-scale trial conditions for food production.
The AGF contains three separate compartments, each 12.8m x 8m (102m2 floor space) and 4m in height. There are two internal corridors with access doors separating the compartments. Compartment 1 has partition roll up screens to split into smaller zones. There are computer controlled pipe heating systems, roof ventilation, cooling fans and automatic shade screens for internal temperature control. There is no supplementary lighting (yet).
The facility also encompasses the Deep Water Hydroponic tanks. This consists of a total of 60 individual 310-litre tanks for deep water hydroponics studies. Each tank is equipped with a heater and pump for temperature control and efficient aeration/circulation. These are designed for use in the testing of future plant protection programmes.
In collaboration with:
The Advanced Glasshouse Facility is based at the Stockbridge Technology Centre (STC). STC is an independent agricultural and horticultural centre of excellence supported by both growers and supply sectors of the industry.
Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA)
Our unique CEA facilities range from pilot-to-commercial scale to foster the development, optimisation, validation, scale-up and demonstration of next-generation technologies and innovative solutions that optimise the indoor production of crops (yield; costs), improving food quality whilst reducing our impact on resources.
We can test the effect of different strategies (environmental controls; IPM); growing systems (natural light; hydroponic; sunless); recipes (lights; nutrients); explore new crops and applications (seed breeding; high-value molecules; ingredients), as well as integrate circular economy opportunities (nutrients; energy; heat; CO2) to drive forward the novel practices and innovation that underpin this sector’s ambitions for sustainable and resilient food production.
