I was trying to get my head around the relationships between plant processes and the environmental factors under our control in a glasshouse or other protected growing environment. These spaces are incredibly dynamic, where the knock-on effects of adjusting one or two variables are numerous, so it makes sense to try to disentangle this web, to have a better handle on what we can do as gardeners or growers to ensure the healthy development of our protected plants or crops.
The mind map I’ve drawn below looks complex at first but is an attempt to make visual sense of a complex set of processes. Concentric rings are used to show three headings (‘Factors’, ‘Significance’ and ‘Control’), colour is used to link different branches of the diagram to core environmental factors (main colour of text boxes and corresponding arrows); control over pests, diseases and nutrients are included as these are further environmental factors but I wanted to give them slightly less emphasis compared to the more interconnected climatic factors. If I were technically gifted, I’d like to make the bullet points in each text box appear as pop-ups in a more interactive fashion, which would make the map less cluttered, but the points offer important explanations so I’m afraid there’s a lot to take in! I hope this helps others to understand what’s really happening in their protected growing environments.
