Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) represents a new term for growing crops under protected structures where environmental conditions where light, temperature, humidity, airflow, and CO2 levels are actively managed within closed or semi-closed facilities. CEA facilities consist of high tunnels, greenhouses, and vertical farms and are designed to decrease land use, promote agricultural diversification, and allow for lengthened or year-round cultivation of crops resulting in a more stable and sustainable food supply chain. These structures can also help address socioeconomic issues associated with food access, such as facilitating the supply of nutrient dense produce in communities without proper supply chains or those lacking adequate soil or weather conditions to support traditional agricultural production. CEA facilities offer additional production benefits over traditional agricultural production, such as reduced pest and disease pressure, which can allow susceptible crops and cultivars to be grown in areas where they would typically not be viable. By design, CEA facilities at the high end of the technological spectrum typically experience less pest pressure via physical exclusion than lower tech CEA (e.g. high tunnels) facilities. This does not mean, however, that pests are never an issue in these facilities, and the lack of understanding of pest management in more advanced production systems leaves us seriously ill-prepared to meet the challenges of this growing industry.
My lab aims to better understand how various factors contribute to the success or failure of pest management programs in CEA using broad approaches ranging from determining the behavioral components of predator-prey interactions to understanding production-level impacts on pest and natural enemy populations. Some of these approaches are discussed further below.
Biological Control of Pests in CEA
Restrictions on the development of new chemical pesticides and pesticide resistance development in a variety of insect pests has raised the urgency for limiting pesticide use through adopting alternative control measures. Biological control of insect pests is an important component of sustainable pest management strategies, which has experienced increased interest due to the building evidence of the negative health, economic, and environmental impacts associated with intensive chemical pesticide use. This strategy complements the production shift within CEA, which has also focused on improved economic, social, and environmental sustainability.
CEA Supplemental Lighting Effects on Arthropod Populations
UNDER CONSTRUCTION!