Enhancing Medicinal Plant Yield through Optimization in Greenhouses and Controlled Environments: A Review

The use of medicinal plants has played an important role in maintaining health and producing herbal medicines throughout history. The increasing global demand for these plants has led to unprincipled exploitation and overharvesting of natural resources. The development of controlled cultivation methods has been proposed as an effective solution to produce high-quality products, to preserve natural ecosystems and to meet market needs. These methods not only increase the yield and quality of the product by optimizing the factors affecting growth, but are also quite effective in producing the active compounds of medicinal plants, and in this regard, they obtain more valuable plants. Along with the various advantages of these systems, the existence of several challenges has still prevented their significant expansion, which, of course, is expected to overcome recent advances. In order to achieve the full potential of these methods as a sustainable solution, more research is needed to provide useful solutions in this field.