When asking: “How can a system with a controlled environment help improve crop performance?”, the answer is easy… The more you analyze data and control CEA variables inside of your system, the better your crop will perform. A greenhouse system depending on the level of technology will allow you to control all 9 environmental variables to a certain level.

By applying controlled environment technologies in the indoor system, we can:

• Increase yield per area. We can farm more in less space.
• Increase our production window, making it possible to approach year-round production. Depending on location, weather and greenhouse technology, this can be translated into annual contracts.
• When we have control of our environment then we will have more predictable results. With a consistent yield, we have control of our results being able to approach problems more effectively.
• We used to select land and then transport our food far distances. With indoor farming and CEA, now we can bring the farm closer to us and focus on more important variables rather than shelf life, like flavor and nutrient content. If we have farms close to our cities then people will have more fresh produce available and we can provide more jobs to our communities.

In this article we will cover and summarize the most important information about CEA variables: Why are they important and how can you use them to improve your plant performance inside of greenhouses.