Protected Cultivation of Cut Flowers: A Critical Narrative Review of Innovations in Production Systems and Sustainability Outcomes

Abstract

Protected cultivation has become the dominant production environment for high-value cut flowers, combining greenhouse structures, soilless substrates, supplemental lighting, carbon dioxide enrichment, and increasingly digital control systems to secure year-round yield and quality. This critical narrative review synthesises recent peer-reviewed evidence on innovations in cut-flower production systems and evaluates the sustainability outcomes associated with their adoption. Evidence indicates that environmental-control technologies, particularly targeted red-to-blue light-emitting diode spectra and carefully timed carbon dioxide enrichment, reliably improve growth, flowering time, and postharvest longevity in rose, chrysanthemum, gerbera, and related taxa, although responses are strongly cultivar- and season-dependent and few studies model the interaction of light, carbon dioxide, and temperature simultaneously. Soilless and recirculating substrate systems reduce soil-borne disease pressure and can improve water and nutrient use efficiency relative to open field or soil-bed cultivation, but comparative economic and environmental data remain fragmented across substrates and species. Digitalisation, including multi-sensor networks and model-predictive climate control, offers demonstrated gains in resource efficiency, though evidence is concentrated in a small number of technologically advanced production clusters. Life-cycle assessments consistently identify heating and lighting energy as the dominant contributors to the carbon footprint of temperate greenhouse-grown flowers, while water footprint and governance research highlights acute basin-level pressures in tropical exporting regions. Biological control has substantially reduced reliance on broad-spectrum insecticides for key pests such as western flower thrips, although emerging species and resistance risks constrain long-term efficacy. Across all domains, the evidence base is geographically concentrated in a small number of production clusters, methodologically heterogeneous in functional units and system boundaries, and rarely integrates agronomic, environmental, and socio-economic outcomes within a single study. The review concludes that protected cut-flower production has advanced substantially in technical sophistication, but that a genuinely integrated sustainability assessment linking production innovation to environmental and social outcomes remains an unresolved priority for the field.