WUR - Stichting Wageningen Research, research institute Wageningen Plant Research, Netherlands

TheGreenhouse Horticulture business unit of Wageningen University & Research is dedicated to innovations in the greenhouse horticulture sector. In collaboration with business and scientific communities and the government, we analyse issues relating to operational management and cultivation and translate them into application-oriented research and innovation procedures.

The Greenhouse Horticulture business unit has locations in Wageningen and Bleiswijk. The Bleiswijk location is in the heart of the municipality of Lansingerland, the second most important greenhouse horticulture location in the Netherlands. This means that the business unit can communicate directly with both the professional field and the scientific community, enabling them to take advantage of vast professional and scientific knowledge, expertise, and facilities within Wageningen UR. The research facilities are unlike any in the world, with greenhouses for research into sustainable crop protection, experimental energy-saving greenhouses, and measurement set-ups for research into greenhouse materials and early signalling of crop stress. The Bleiswijk location has two Innovation and Demonstration Centres on Energy and Water Treatment grounds. The business unit has excellent interaction with the Dutch organic greenhouse growers through several nationally-funded projects, which enables them to closely interact with the organic greenhouse growers.

Role in the project

The role of the Greenhouse Horticulture business unit in this project is to analyse the impact of functional biodiversity on pest control in the cropping systems at several experimental research stations. This work will be done in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam and includes sample analyses for arthropod diversity measurements, predation capacity tests and experiments to evaluate soil microbial mediated effects on above ground pests.