Author: Ting-En Dai, Floriculture Research Center, Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute

Floricultural crops are vulnerable to rain, gales, extremes in temperature, and other climatic factors, which damage the quality and appearance of products. Therefore, to protect flower crops production, we need greenhouses, net-houses, and other protected facilities.

Oncidium cut flower production in Taiwan, with international competitiveness, ranks first at the cut flower export abroad. The Taiwan's oncidium exported to Japan with a stable supply of 20 million cut flowers per year for four years, accounting for 80% of Japanese imports, earning more than NT $ 300 billion foreign exchange. The cut flower production of oncidium still has many key techniques needed to develop. Because environmental and cultural requirements are different in oncidium varieties, medium and fertigation will influence the quantity and quality of oncidium cut flowers, the physiological characteristics of varieties and cultural management need to be evaluated and established.

Most of the oncidium cut flowers were cultured in net-houses, fans, sprinkler systems, heating or lighting equipments will be installed in a net-house to control the growth environment. However, depending on the location in the facility, the difference of microclimate conditions may influence the production of cut flowers.

This project is intended to establish a methodology to build up an analysis module of the microclimate in net-house and compare with the quality and quantity of cut flower production to evaluate the key climate factor.