Only 58 per cent of the vegetables eaten in the UK are grown here. Nottingham researchers redesigned a standard greenhouse to find out how much of that gap is down to design alone.
Countries like the Netherlands and Japan grow far more of their own food using standardised greenhouse designs, while the UK has no such national standard, leaving performance up to individual builders. Researchers Lim and Zheng from the University of Nottingham redesigned a standard greenhouse structure and tested it against a traditional one to see how much of the gap comes down to design alone.
Some reported findings are:
- Only 58 per cent of vegetables consumed in the UK are grown domestically, the rest is imported
- The redesigned greenhouse held onto heat 30.4 per cent better than a traditional one
- Heating costs per square metre dropped by 9.5 per cent over a full year with no other changes made
This paper was published in our affiliated journal Green Technology & Innovation. Read the full article