ADVANCEA hosting greenhouse environmental control online course

ADVANCEA is hosting the "Introduction to Greenhouse Environmental Control for Crop Production" online course in 2025.

“Introduction to Greenhouse Environmental Control for Crop Production” is a 14-week certificate course designed and offered by ADVANCEA. The course will provide students with foundational information about the essentials of greenhouse environment control for a variety of commonly grown crops.

The course is $499 and runs from Jan. 9 through April 10, 2025.

Based on ADVANCEA's previous experience offering this course, it was substantially revised and improved with the aim of making it most relevant to beginning and intermediate greenhouse growers.

This course will provide a strong understanding of greenhouse environment control to those who are already employed in the industry, or those enrolled in an academic program with desire to learn about environmental controls in greenhouse systems.

The course is designed to be equivalent to an upper-level college course and requires entry-level understanding of modern greenhouse production systems.

Attendees will review various greenhouse crop production systems; be able to describe why and how important environmental parameters are controlled using sensors and control systems; gain sufficient insight in the basics of energy and mass transfer to understand the key plant-environment interactions in greenhouses; learn the basics of sensors and control logic to optimize greenhouse conditions; and become familiar with recent developments in greenhouse control strategies.

Live lectures are scheduled weekly via Zoom (two lectures per week, every Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. ET). All lectures will be recorded for students who wish to take the course based on recorded lectures. A course content management system (D2L Community) will be used.

Lecture specific quizzes will be used to assess the completion of course. A certificate of completion from The University of Arizona will be granted to students who complete the course. You don't need to be a University of Arizona student or located in Arizona to take the course, and no application is required.

Course instructors include researchers from the U.S. and the Netherlands, including A.J. Both, Rutgers University; Chieri Kubota, The Ohio State University; Murat Kacira, The University of Arizona; Peter Ling, The Ohio State University; Guil Signorini, The Ohio State University; Ken Tran, Koidra Inc.; and Stijn Jochems, Delphy.

This collaborative research and extension program ADVANCEA project is funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Specialty Crop Research Initiative, and its objective is to assist U.S. growers in creating the most ideal crop-growing environment using real-time data and AI-based climate optimization processes.

To register for the course, click here (you'll be prompted to create an account if you do not have one).