Protected Crops

Question 1

What is a cold frame?

Answer 1

A transparent-roofed enclosure, built low to the ground and used to passively protect plants from cold weather.

Question 2

What is a hotbed?

Answer 2

An enclosure similar to cold frames except with an internal heat source instead of relying on the sun for heat.

Question 3

How are hotbeds heated?

Answer 3

Hotbeds were originally heated with steam pipes or fresh manure buried beneath the rooting zones of the plants. Recently, soil-heating cables are used to warm hotbeds.

Question 4

What is a sash house?

Answer 4

A primitive greenhouse made of panels of glass held together by wooden frames on a steep slope.

Question 5

Are row covers equivalent to a greenhouse?.

Answer 5

Row covers are often more practical, less expensive, and more flexible to cover individual rows to create a favorable micro-climate around plants and extending the season.

Question 6

What are hot caps?

Answer 6

Individual plant covers that protect against low-temperature injury.

Question 7

What is a floating row cover?

Answer 7

A lightweight fabric laid directly on top of the row which may be woven or non-woven. They may provide slight frost protection, allow water to infiltrate, reduce soil evaporation, and protect against insects.

Question 8

What is a bad cover?

Answer 8

A cover similar to the plastic film mulches used for plasticulture except that the bed is shaped to provide an open area to allow the crop room to grow beneath the plastic, by spreading a thin film of clear plastic tightly across a V-shaped bed surface.

Question 9

What are low tunnels?

Answer 9

Sheets of clear plastic used to protect warm-season crops from cold weather early in the season and extend the season past the killing frost.

Question 10

What are high tunnels?

Answer 10

Temporary or portable hoop-style houses whch are essentially temporary narrow portable plastic-covered greenhouses that cover sections of a field for a growing season, primarily used to extend the season.

Question 11

How is the buildup of soil pathogens in a greenhouse prevented?

Answer 11

Steam sterilization and chemical fumigation, use of grafted plants, solarization

Question 12

What is hydroponics?

Answer 12

A technology for growing plants in nutrient solutions with or without the use of an artificial media (sand, gravel, vermiculite, rockwool, perlite, lava rock, peat moss, coir, or sawdust) to provide mechanical support ,

Question 13

What are advantages of hydroponic culture?

Answer 13

Eliminating the need for soil sterilization, optimizing nutrient availability and ability to adjust the system to provide the proper amount of water.

Question 14

What are the 16 elements required for plant growth?

Answer 14

C, H, O, P, K, N, S, Ca, Fe, Mg, B, Mn, Cu, Zn, Mo, and Cl.

Question 15

Name strategies for ensuring that hydroponic vegetables are adequately fertilized.

Answer 15

Varying the nutrient concentration of the hydroponic solution to match the changing demands of the developing plant; monitoring plant nutrition through foliar analysis and adjusting the nutrient solution in response to plant needs;

Question 16

What are media that can be used in hydroponic systems?

Answer 16

Rockwool, a nutrient film (trough or PVC pipe containing circulating nutrient solution).

Question 17

What is an ebb and flow system?

Answer 17

Alternate use of an ebb cycle where air circulates underneath to promote root pruning and a hydration cycle where the bed is flooded with nutrient solution or water for a specific period of time.

Question 18

What are advantages/disadvantages of an ebb and flow system?

Answer 18

It uses relatively large volumes of water, has significant evaporative losses, precision control of the nutrient concentration in the water is difficult, the wastewater may have a high mineral content. However, it is a relatively simple system that uses a minimum of hardware and equipment.

Question 19

What is aeroponics?

Answer 19

A minimalistic system that produces plants without media where plant stalks are held in place by a series of braces, the roots suspended in air and bathed in a fine mist of nutrient solution, the roots enclosed in the dark using sheets of dark plastic film to confine the nutrient mist and control the growth of algae.

Question 20

What is bag culture?

Answer 20

Bags of commercially prepared soilless rooting media are placed in the greenhouse, and crops such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, or cucumbers are transplanted into a hole cut in the bag.

Question 21

What is Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA)?

Answer 21

CEA can be practiced in windowless buildings where all aspects of production are controlled, including light.