Nanotechnology technology engineering professor Dr. Nasser Mohieddin Abukhdeir is collaborating with government and academic partners to improve agricultural production in Ontario’s greenhouse industry.
In controlled greenhouse environments, growers can manage temperature, humidity, CO₂, and nutrients far more precisely than in open fields, extending productivity well beyond the outdoor season, but greenhouses also intensify the stakes.
Dense plant populations and precisely controlled conditions mean that when disease or pests take hold, they can spread quickly. Current monitoring relies on human scouts who walk the rows every couple of days, but sometimes less frequently, which leaves gaps in response times that can turn into significant losses.
“We are combining computer vision with metabolic models, so each plant gets checked far more frequently than a human scout walking the rows every couple of days,” says Abukhdeir.
The initiative — funded by the governments of Canada and Ontario through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, a federal, provincial and territorial initiative — could yield an important predictive tool for greenhouse production.
Agriculture is a frontier where engineers can make a real impact to help Ontario growers. For a province that feeds itself and contributes to feeding the country, that kind of engineering has real value — and it's happening at Waterloo.