Exciting Future for Horticulture in Indiana

​In March 2015 the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture appointed Dr. Petrus Langenhoven as Horticulture and Hydroponics Crop Specialist.

During the past 18 years Dr. Petrus Langenhoven has dedicated his career to the development of the horticulture sector in Sub-Saharan Africa. His career started off at the Agricultural Research Council in Stellenbosch, South Africa. He completed his M.S in Agronomy at Stellenbosch University while working at the Agricultural Research Council. He completed his PhD in Agronomy specializing in vegetable production in high tunnels at Stellenbosch University, South Africa in 2004.

He advanced his career at a non-governmental organization, Agribusiness in Sustainable Natural African Plant Products (ASNAPP). As operations director and senior agronomist he led ASNAPP’s greenhouse crop production and specialty fresh market vegetable and herb crop research and technology transfer programs. He specialized in the analysis and development of horticulture supply chains. He has extensive experience in applied on-farm research and development, outreach and extension, agribusiness development and the implementation of sustainable farming models. He assisted many start-up agribusinesses in the development of their business feasibility plans, production planning and management, and marketing of their products. His research has been used in several outreach and extension manuals. During the past 12 years he has been involved in several United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded agricultural development projects. He served as Chairman of Intensive Agriculture South Africa (IASA) for 8 years, representing producers and companies from the controlled environment agriculture industry in South Africa.

Dr. Langenhoven is very passionate about horticulture, more specifically about controlled environment agriculture and the impact it can have on year-round local, sustainable food production. “One of the reasons that I find this opportunity so appealing is that I will be able to support the growing local food movement in Indiana by assisting growers with the expansion of their horticulture sector through collaborative extension and research that focuses on the development of sustainable and environmentally friendly production technology, and the evaluation and introduction of alternative horticultural crops.” He will work closely with faculty from the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue to develop and evaluate the potential of new crops and markets.

His office is on the main Purdue campus (Horticulture Building) in West Lafayette and can be reached by telephone at 765-496-7955 or email at plangenh@purdue.edu.