The History of Environmental Control

Abstract

Since the dawn of agricultural history man must have been aware of the effects of weather on his crops, especially when these effects were catastrophic in times of drought or storm, but there was little real knowledge about the interactions between plants and individual factors of the environment until about seventy years ago. About that time plant physiologists became keenly interested in the study of various aspects of plant growth, under conditions where one or more factors of the plant environment were to some extent controlled, though it was not possible to grow plants for long under the forms of artificial light which were then available. Professor F. G. Gregory was probably the first to make a study of the growth of plants for long periods of time under conditions (in a glasshouse) which, though not strictly controlled, were nevertheless clearly defined, but the big 'break-through' came when novel ranges of electric lamps were developed with characteristics, more suitable for plant growth, which made it possible to grow more or less normal plants for prolonged periods under artificial light.