What is intelligent greenhouse horticulture?
Intelligentization is an application based on automation and composed of modern information technology, modern management technology and industry-specific process technology. Intelligentization is the upgrading of automatic production system. It is an intelligent operation system with decision-making and judgment ability, adaptive and cooperative communication ability. Intelligentization in living home forms intelligent building and residence. For cars, automatic parking and other similar systems have been formed. The main goal of intelligentization is to replace all human operations and some human decisions through equipment, so as to save manpower, make the operation more accurate and make the decision more scientific. Greenhouse horticulture intelligentization is to complete the production process of greenhouse horticulture through equipment technology, from cultivation management and other production operations to harvesting and commodity processing, so as to realize automatic operation of facility production, collaborative management and systematic decision-making of facility production and operation.
It is worth noting that the intelligentization of greenhouse horticulture is different from the intelligentization of greenhouse environmental control. The former focuses on the whole production process of greenhouse horticulture, and the latter focuses on the greenhouse environment itself. Different from the application of Internet of things in greenhouse agriculture, the former focuses on operation and management, and the latter focuses on the whole process tracking and management of output conditions and output commodities. Unlike Internet plus, the former focuses on the organization's internal control and execution, and the latter focuses on the organization's openness and external sharing.
Why is so necessary to develop intelligent greenhouse horticulture?
Let’s see the Intelligent process and current situation of greenhouse horticulture in developed countries. For example, in the Netherlands and the United States, the development modes of greenhouse horticulture industry are different, but they are all for the same goal. They all move towards the application and development path of full automation (except some harvesting links) and local intelligence. In the Netherlands, the production automation of greenhouse horticulture has been gradually promoted since the 1990s. With the development of information technology, it has been rapidly transplanted and applied to greenhouse horticulture. In the late 1990s, a comprehensive automatic equipment system has been formed, labor management, energy management, environmental management and system resource management systems have been established, and intelligence has been gradually realized. The United States follows the path of the Netherlands. The difference is that it pays more attention to scale and intensive organization under the large-scale production system. The specific technologies are roughly the same, but they are dominated by original research and development. It is precisely because of the highly intelligent equipment support that it has realized the survival and development of greenhouse horticulture enterprises in the highly market-oriented industrial competitive environment under the situation of high labor and means of production costs.
As a powerful greenhouse horticulture country represented by these two countries, the popularity and application of intelligence has experienced three stages: starting, breakthrough and coverage link extension. In addition to some nodes such as harvesting, so far, in the two leading categories of vegetables and flowers, the whole process automation and key link intelligence of the industrial chain from planting to delivery and listing have been basically realized. The intelligent application rate of greenhouse in the Netherlands exceeds 90%. In the field of potted flowers, in the postpartum treatment of various crops, the intelligent rate is 100%. The benefits of intelligentization to greenhouse horticultural planting enterprises are comprehensive. On the one hand, due to the accuracy of intelligent equipment, its cultivation and production operation has realized reliable and accurate management, so as to obtain high yield. On the other hand, the decision-making based on intelligent system makes its production management and operation management through scientific logical judgment, reduces the misjudgment rate, and obtains sustainable operation benefits.
In short, greenhouse agriculture growers will face a more complex competitive environment, and the policy support tends to be rational. Obtaining economic benefits through good operation and management and high production efficiency is not only the national expectation for the industry, but also the practical requirement for every practitioner and enterprise. Therefore, the traditional production equipment will gradually be unable to support, and the production intelligence based on local conditions and needs will be an important development direction.
Leading enterprises of protected horticulture not only sell their own products, but also shoulder the responsibility of driving farmers to realize standardized production, product acquisition and sales. With large product throughput, high added value and long production chain, they generally have a complete operation process from seedlings to commercialized agricultural products. Both vegetable and flower leading producers have the conditions and potential demand to realize the whole process intelligence. The whole process intelligentization shall at least include four main aspects: seedling production, finished product production, commercialization processing and inventory management, and shall also include the same resource management content as seedling intelligentization.
