Decision Support for Integrated Greenhouse Production Systems

A greenhouse is a system integrating a number of interrelated hardware and software components. Some of them are the structure, the environment within the structure, the crop growing facility, the materials handling equipment, the environmental control apparatus and strategies, the information processing devices, and the management and labor forces. The degree of complexity of a greenhouse depends on the operating objective of the system. To ensure the compatibility of all the components and the workability of the entire system, a systems level approach can never be overemphasized (Giacomelli et al., 1987; van Weel and Giacomelli, 1990).