Hacking Tomatoes at the World’s Greenest Greenhouse

The Netherlands has nearly 11 thousand hectares of growing space under glass, or about 40 square miles. That’s almost twice the area of the island of Manhattan. In fact, no country has a greater proportion of its land area under glass.

But these greenhouses boast more than plants. They’re also a breeding ground for high-tech plant experiments and greener energy. Some of the country’s most advanced greenhouses are in Bleiswijk and operated by Wageningen University and Research Center. At the Wageningen greenhouses, researchers can grow as many as 150 pounds of tomatoes in a square yard of space. And by using specially calibrated LED lights, they have managed to produce exotic new tomatoes with a whopping 50 percent more vitamin C than ordinary ones.