Advanced photosynthesis equipment for enhanced capacity in Nova Scotia's indoor and outdoor agriculture sector.

在过去的几十年里，加拿大的农业见证了环境控制温室和室内(人造灯光)农业生产系统的兴起。在新斯科舍省，这些类型的农业生产系统每年贡献超过2000万美元，占其农业经济的10%。此外，由于商业大麻生产最近已合法化，获得新鲜当地农产品的需求激增，受环境控制的农业生产系统的经济贡献预计将增加。为了帮助该产业在该省发展壮大，需要确定作物光合作用的最佳环境条件(二氧化碳、温度、养分和光照)，以提高产量和产品质量。生产者面临的问题是，光合作用的最佳环境条件是基于调查单一环境因素对作物影响的研究提出的建议，而没有考虑到环境因素相互作用影响作物的光合作用能力，进而影响产量和产品质量。因此，当生产者不考虑环境因素如何相互作用来进行植物光合作用时，生产者可能没有为作物提供最佳的生长条件，因为环境因素之间的相互作用正在影响作物的光合作用能力。另一方面，由于这些相互作用，生产者也可能提供不必要地浪费资源(超过环境条件)的环境，而不会导致作物产量或质量的提高。因此，有必要研究不同环境条件如何在环境控制的环境下影响作物光合作用，以提高生产效率，提高作物产品质量，并将成本降至最低。为了进行这项研究，新斯科舍社区学院的环境和农业技术实验室正在申请一台光合作用测定仪，以提供该地区目前没有的独特研究机会。

Over the past several decades, Canada's agriculture industry has seen the rise of environmentally-controlled greenhouse and indoor (artificial lights) agriculture production systems. In Nova Scotia, these type of agricultural production systems contribute over 20 million dollars a year, representing 10% of its agriculture economy. Furthermore, as commercial cannabis production has recently been legalized and the demand to obtain fresh local produce surges, the economic contribution of environmentally-controlled agricultural production systems is expected to rise. To help this industry grow and expand in the province, identifying optimal environmental conditions (CO2, temperature, nutrients, and light) for crop photosynthesis is needed to improve yields and product quality. The issue for producers is that optimal environmental conditions for photosynthesis are based on recommendations created from research investigating single environmental factor impacts on crops, not taking into consideration that environmental factors interact to affect the ability of crops to photosynthesize, which in turn will impact yields and produce quality. Thus, when producers don't consider how environmental factors interact to have plant photosynthesis, producers may not be providing optimal growing conditions for the crop because the interaction among environmental factors are impacting the ability of the crop to photosynthesize. On the other hand, due to these interactions producers may also be providing environments that needlessly waste resources (exceed environmental conditions) that don't result in increased crop yields or quality. As a result, there is a need to investigate how different environmental conditions interact to affect crop photosynthesis in an environmentally-controlled setting in order to improve production efficiency, increase crop produce quality, as well as minimize costs. To conduct this research, Nova Scotia Community College's Environment and Agriculture Technology Lab is requesting a photosynthesis meter to offer a unique research opportunity currently not available in the region.