The National Research and Development Center for Sustainable Agriculture (Estidamah) organized an open day program on the latest research findings to promote sustainable agriculture at the Center's headquarters in Riyadh Techno Valley, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on 19 April 2018.
The program began with a detailed introduction in which Dr. Khalid Al-Assaf, the Executive Director of Estidamah Center, presented the Center's experiences in the protected agriculture sector. It also included several lectures on the research, experiments, and results carried out by Estidamah Center, including its trials on lighting in greenhouses, environmental control, water use, and the different types of growing media used in soilless agriculture, in addition to integrated pest management.
The speakers then reviewed the most important disease-causing insects, how to monitor them, determine their numbers and the pests they cause, and trained the audience of agriculture graduates, entrepreneurs, farmers, and investors in the protected agriculture sector on the latest different methods of using pesticides and how to avoid pest infestation.
A large group of those interested in the field of protected agriculture from various specialties attended the program and showed great interaction with the topics discussed and the results presented. Estidamah Center also organized field tours for the attendees, with hands-on training on the latest technologies used in the field of protected agriculture.