https://www.futurefoodsystems.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/CRC-PhD-student-Terry-Lin-won-second-prize-in-the-Student-Presentation-award.-Credit-Merran-White_CROP-scaled-1200x900.jpg

Terry Lin: Investigating warm-climate greenhouse tech in Australian facilities

Terry Lin is undertaking his PhD with Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment (HIE), surveying the efficacy of various warm-climate greenhouse set-ups and technologies.

Lin’s thesis, Titled ‘Optimal cooling strategies for protected cropping of cucumber in warm-climates’ will focus on describing crop, technology and climate interactions produced by various protected cropping strategies and greenhouse designs in Australia’s warm climate.

Working at HIE’s high-tech experimental glasshouse under Professor Zhonghua Chen, he’ll evaluate the long-term performance of several cooling technologies and greenhouse set-ups.

One important goal will be to characterise the energy-saving potential of ‘smart glass’ (glass coated with photoselective thin film) for greenhouses, gathering data from existing crop trials within HIE’s high-tech glasshouse facility, which has trial bays retrofitted with smart glass.

Lin’s insights will be used to support the design of a greenhouse energy- and mass-transfer model, to be validated using experimental data from greenhouses and cooling systems in various Australian locations.

Lead image: CRC PhD student Terry Lin, speaking about his research at the 2022 Protected Cropping Australia conference in March.