High Tunnels Use in Specialty Crop Production

Feb 23, 2022

By Tatiana Sanchez

There are several reasons to consider building a high tunnel. The most common reasons include protecting crops from the elements, extension of cropping seasons, and improved crop yield and quality. Adoption of high tunnels has been favored by the High Tunnel System Initiative from NRCS-EQIP, which offers financial support to growers who wish to install a high tunnel on their farms. But this increased adoption needs to be supported with the information that helps producers succeed at growing crops in a new environment.

Many things change when you grow crops inside a high tunnel compared to an open field. Research is needed to understand what varieties perform better, and how water and nutrient requirements may change under these growing conditions. But how to prioritize what needs to be answered first? How do we even know how quickly will this industry grow?

A group of researchers at the University of Florida are investigating exactly this. They seek to develop a research-extension network to advance the emerging high tunnel vegetable industry in Florida. If you are a specialty crop producer, share your opinion to help us understand why you would adopt high tunnels, what prevents you from it or if you already have a high tunnel, what research needs would you prioritize. Online Survey: Florida Specialty Crop Growers

Source : ufl.edu

Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.