Determining the Important Energy Indicators in Cucumber Greenhouses in Varamin Region

This project has been carried out in order to study the energy indicators in greenhouse cucumber production in Varamin region. For data collection, a greenhouse was selected for a concentrated survay and beside, 30 other cucumber production greenhouses were selected randomly and investigated in Varamin region. Energy inputs in this study included embodied energy in fertilizers, chemicals, machinery, labor, seeds, irrigation, and transportation. The results showed that the total energy consumption for greenhouse cucumber production in Varamin region was in average 4530.1 GJ/ha. The highest energy consumption was related to fuel (natural gas) and chemical toxins, which were respectively 4463.9 and 27.2 GJ/ha. The fuel energy consumption alone accounted for 98% of the total energy. The reason for high fuel consumption in these greenhouses was related to greenhouse warming, intensive because of inadequate greenhouse cover (plastic). The energy consumed directly in the production of greenhouse cucumber was 98.54 and the energy consumed indirectly was less than one percent. The average crop yield was 261 tons per hectare and its energy output equivalent was 208.8 GJ/ha. The energy ratio was calculated to be 0.046, net energy gain was (-4321) GJ/ha and the energy productivity was 0.057 kg/MJ. Finally, the results showed that optimizing gas consumption can significantly reduce the total energy consumption in cucumber production in Varamin region.