August 13, 2018

TASS, August 13. Scientists of the Tomsk Polytechnic University designed "smart" greenhouses for the Arctic regions, where growing vegetables does not depend on climate conditions or sunlight. The scientists told TASS about how the Arctic regions may grow vegetables for own needs and what other technologies may be used there.

Hydroponic vegetables

The "smart" greenhouses for the Arctic have automatic processes and do not depend on the climate or any other outside conditions, Director of the University’s Engineering School Alexei Yakovlev told TASS. The Tomsk project will use for lighting vegetables, which in regular conditions are short of light, polycrystalline LED materials - thus giving to vegetables the light of a necessary spectrum.

"Plants are sensitive to the spectrum, which is different for human eyes," the scientist said. "Our task is to offer to vegetables a comfortable spectrum." The equipment is programmed so that it will offer automatically more light for example on overcast days, he added.

The vegetables will grow not in the soil, but hydroponically. "We are using hydroponic systems," the expert said.

The scientists are beginning tests - they will try growing cucumbers in the greenhouse. Besides, they will study how plants react to various lights.

Supply and demand

People, living in the Yamalo-Nenets Region, consume every year 11,000 tonnes of cucumbers and tomatoes, while the local greenhouses produce only 18 tonnes a year, the regional governor’s press service told TASS. The gap is filled by supplies from the Krasnodar, Stavropol, Tyumen, Kirov, Moscow regions, and from the CIS countries.

A new greenhouse complex, which will open in Salekhard in 2020, will take an area of one hectare.

"This project, a public-private partnership, continues, and the complex will produce about 1,000 tonnes of vegetables a year," the press service said, adding the local authorities are interested in new agricultural technologies, in automatic "smart" greenhouses.

In the Arkhangelsk Region, two companies grow vegetables. The regional agricultural ministry told TASS the annual production there is 1-1.2 thousand tonnes of vegetables. The vegetables and herbs are sold in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk and Novodvinsk.

The Nenets Agricultural Company (in the Yamalo-Nenets Region) produces 70 tonnes of cucumbers, tomatoes and herbs. "The locally produced vegetables are supplied mostly to Naryan-Mar," the regional Department of Natural Resources, Ecology and Agriculture told TASS. "As we have nomadic population, the locally produced vegetables make only 12% of the demand, and the rest is brought from outside the region."

Komi’s Vorkuta, which is north of the Polar Circle, develops the project on hydroponic vegetables.

"We produce about 200 kg of herbs a month - lettuce, salad, basil, mint," the project’s head Elena Smirnova told TASS. "We supply them to cafes and restaurants, to some shops; the trade chains are only watching us yet."

"Anyway, we see the demand and plan to expand the production," she added.

New formats

Russian regions have other projects related to growing in the Far North of plants, which are not typical for those regions. Director General of the iFarm Company, working in Novosibirsk, Alexander Lyskovsky said his company, which produces greenhouses, eyes making vertical greenhouses, where every garden bed is above another. They are installed in absolutely dark spaces.

"Probably, it may be more correct to install the vertical farms using fully artificial light - anyway, there is so little sunlight in those regions," he said. "Vertical farms are organized in basements, hangars, to where the sunlight would not come, and there you install garden beds one above another."

"It is more complicated to grow there cucumbers or tomatoes, as they require much space, but it is quite possible to grow herbs and strawberry there," he added. iFarm’s specialists plan to test the technology and materials in Norilsk, where the authorities have expressed interest in greenhouses.

"Smart" greenhouses for the Arctic regions are also designed in St. Petersburg. The Defense Ministry is interested in portable complexes for growing any amounts of vegetables, the project’s head Gayane Panova told TASS.

"At the request from the Defense Ministry, we have initiated a waste-free energy-effective technology for growing greengrocery (parsley, dill, lettuce, other herbs, tomatoes, and cucumbers)," she said. "We were allowed to state tests in the Arctic." However, due to problems with an investor, the Arctic tests did not happen and the scientists are looking for new investors.

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