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New Innovations – Lettuce Wall at Newtown College
The eye-catching addition of the lettuce tower in the Newtown College foyer is part of the Crop Cycle project, a Farm Urban system to cultivate lettuce and other greens using a soilless system of vertical towers. This project is funded by the Welsh Government to introduce indoor growing CEA of food crops into communities.
NPTC Group of Colleges
23 June 2021
Newtown College (Part of @NPTCGroup of Colleges) is going all green-fingered as it introduces a new Horticulture course. This exciting new addition has brought with it a new collaboration with Cultivate, and a new initiative with the introduction of a lettuce wall to the Newtown College Foyer.
The new Level 1 & 2 Horticulture courses will be available from September. The course will utilize the fantastic facilities of Cultivate to do practical work, including accessing polytunnels, allotments, and projects within their grounds include growing via CEA (Controlled Environment Agriculture).
The eye-catching addition of the lettuce tower in the Newtown College foyer is part of the Crop Cycle project, a Farm Urban system to cultivate lettuce and other greens using a soilless system of vertical towers. This project is funded by the Welsh Government to introduce indoor growing CEA of food crops into communities. Whilst we live in a rural environment, new ways of nurturing plants, using what is known as hydroponics, is revolutionary and is growing in popularity.
Cultivate are piloting a number of different controlled environment vertical farming systems to grow hyper-local nutritious crops to offer within the community. Local, sustainably grown food is absolutely key in tackling important issues surrounding our food system, climate change and biodiversity. This will allow Cultivate food business to increase the amount of local foods produced and in turn, consumed, ensuring that growing models become more sustainable and that our population can eat more locally grown, sustainable, healthier produce.
Richard Edwards Cultivate Crop Cycles project manager said:
“They taste great, are highly nutritious and are super fresh, visit our Deli in Newtown to try them for yourself!”
NPTC Group of Colleges Head of Agriculture, Catering, Hospitality and Horticulture, Sue Lloyd-Jones said:
“We are very excited about introducing the Horticulture Courses to Newtown College. These courses are already popular in our Brecon Beacons, Neath College and Black Mountains Colleges. With this fantastic collaboration with Cultivate, it gives us extensive facilities and involvement with initiatives such as the CEA. The lettuce wall provides a point of education for students to learn about potential food sustainability and the subtle shift toward urban or hyper-local cultivation. It demonstrates how to grow plants without soil but in nutrient-rich water with oxygen and light. It also serves as a local edible wall producing greens for our catering department’.
Five Tips For Horticulture: New Video On Monitoring Hydroponic Systems
This video is part of the series called “Five Tips for Horticulture” featured on the Greenhouse Training Online channel (https://tinyurl.com/ufgto)
Dr. Paul Fisher from the University of Florida IFAS Extension hosts Jon Greene of Bluelab Corporation in a new YouTube video (https://youtu.be/Yxt7OZnieng). They discuss technical tips for pH and electrical conductivity (EC) monitoring in hydroponic plant production, as well as water management and the importance of maintaining monitoring equipment.
This video is part of the series called “Five Tips for Horticulture” featured on the Greenhouse Training Online channel (https://tinyurl.com/ufgto). The series highlights technical topics from university and industry experts. Look for upcoming videos on topics such as growing media, vermicompost, and hydroponics substrates. The channel is sponsored by the Floriculture Research Alliance (floriculturealliance.org).
For more information on hydroponics, take the UF IFAS Extension online course for growers on Hydroponic Vegetable Production beginning on November 9 (https://hort.ifas.ufl.edu/training/) in English and Spanish.
The mission of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) is to develop knowledge relevant to agricultural, human, and natural resources and to make that knowledge available to sustain and enhance the quality of human life. With more than a dozen research facilities, 67 county Extension offices, and award-winning students and faculty in the UF College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, UF/IFAS brings science-based solutions to the state’s agricultural and natural resources industries and all Florida residents. ifas.ufl.edu | @UF_IFAS
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UK: £5m Funding Award For John Innes Centre To Modernize Horticultural Facilities
A little over £3m of the investment will provide new Controlled Environment Rooms (CERs) for plant and microbial experiments. CER’s offer scientists precise control of environmental factors such as light, temperature, and humidity
A multi-million-pound project to modernize the horticultural facilities at John Innes Centre has been approved.
The £5.1m upgrade is funded by UKRI-BBSRC. Work will begin in Autumn 2020, and the project set to be completed by March 2021.
The company's Horticultural Services support the world-renowned science of the John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury Laboratory and occupies a large site on the Norwich Research Park.
A little over £3m of the investment will provide new Controlled Environment Rooms (CERs) for plant and microbial experiments. CER’s offer scientists precise control of environmental factors such as light, temperature, and humidity. The upgrade will also improve the containment measures required for experiments that investigate plant pathogens, or for growing genetically modified plants.
The new infrastructure offers energy efficiency and sustainability gains due to LED lighting, wastewater treatment, and rainwater harvesting. The reduction in utility costs from installing these technologies is estimated to be £116,000 per year.
Further savings will be achieved by more efficient use of glasshouse space (£200,000 per year) and reduced reliance on off-site horticultural facilities (£240,000) per year.
The current glasshouses (which cover an area of 5,775m2) is mostly single-span structures designed and built several decades ago. This investment is the start of a long-term move away from using glasshouses and towards controlled environments which better enable consistency of inputs and experimental results.
Head of Horticultural Services at the John Innes Centre, John Lord said: “World-class science needs world–class, market-leading technology. This investment is timely because there is a desperate need for our scientists to work on solutions to the challenges that face us. From understanding pathogens that cause plant diseases, to creating climate-resilient, nutritious crops that feed the world.
“This investment will bring a much-needed upgrade, providing facilities that are relevant and appropriate for the world-leading plant and microbial science that takes place on the Norwich Research Park. It also future proofs the site to fit with longer-term ambitions to redevelop the infrastructure here.”
Features of the new modernization include 30m2 of large walk-in growth space which offers LED lighting, nutrient enrichment, climate control, and state-of-the-art irrigation systems. The spaces will be configurable, it can be divided into multiple layers or used as a large open space, offering the next step towards bigger trials for crops.
The new facility will also benefit from a sustainable water supply, as it will harvest rainwater. The rainwater will be monitored and treated onsite to ensure it is free from phytopathogens, and that it has the correct pH. This soft, nutrient-rich harvested rainwater means that scientists will be able to minimize the use of fertilizers, and the consistent, monitored water supply will ensure that scientific experiments are reliable and repeatable.
“This is the start of a wider, long term project to update horticultural services at the John Innes Centre to ensure that it continues to meet the needs of science of today while being flexible enough to meet the needs of tomorrow as problems and new technologies arise,” said John.
For more information:
John Innes Centre
www.jic.ac.uk
Publication date: Thu 8 Oct 2020
How Can Crop Production Data Advance The Controlled Environment Agriculture Industry?
The Controlled Environment Agriculture Open Data project aims to advance controlled environment research, machine learning, and artificial intelligence through the collection and dissemination of crop production data
The Controlled Environment Agriculture Open Data project aims to advance controlled environment research, machine learning, and artificial intelligence through the collection and dissemination of crop production data.
by By David Kuack
There is a considerable amount of data being generated by both private companies and university researchers when it comes to controlled environment crop production. This data is being generated for ornamentals, food crops, and cannabis. One of the questions about all this data is whether it is being used to its maximum potential to benefit the horticulture industry.
“Data has become a big topic in the horticulture industry with university researchers and private companies,” said Erico Mattos, executive director of the Greenhouse Lighting and Systems Engineering (GLASE) consortium. “People can identify with the challenges and opportunities with the amount of data that is being generated. However, we don’t yet have a centralized repository and a standard methodology for storage to allow us to explore and exploit this data.”
The formation of the Controlled Environment Agriculture Open Data (CEAOD) project aims to promote crop production data sharing from universities and private companies to accelerate CEA research.
Addressing the data proliferation
In 2018 during the North Central Extension & Research Activity–101 (NCERA-101) meeting members of this USDA-organized committee discussed what should be done with the extensive amount of data being generated by controlled environment researchers. Ohio State University professor Chieri Kubota proposed the formation of a sub-committee to address the need to develop guidelines for sharing data generated by controlled environment agriculture researchers.
“Dr. Kubota initiated the discussion about the need for a centralized platform to store data collected from controlled environment research,” Mattos said. “A task force was formed that included Chieri, Kale Harbick at USDA-ARS, Purdue University professor Yang Yang, Melanie Yelton at Plenty and myself. Since the task force was formed Ken Tran at Koidra and Timothy Shelford at Cornell University have also become members of the task force.
“We started discussing how we could make use of all this data. Researchers in the United States collect a huge amount of data. All of the environmental data such as temperature, relative humidity and carbon dioxide and light levels in controlled environment research is collected. There is also a biological set of data which includes plant biomass and fruit yield.”
Mattos said there is also a great deal of research data generated and collected by private companies that is not shared with the horticulture industry.
“With the advancement in sensors and environmental controls, the capability now exists that this data can be collected,” he said. “With the advancements in computing power, this data can be used to start new applications and new tools that haven’t been available before. However, in order to do this, we have to have access to a large amount of data. That’s why the task force thought it would be good to create a repository where researchers and private companies could share the data following a specific format. This data could then be used in the advancement of machine learning and artificial intelligence applications to optimize crop yields in commercial CEA operations.”
An increasing number of funding agencies and organizations, including USDA, are requiring researchers include information about their data management plans in their grant proposals.
Need for collecting and organizing data
Mattos said university researchers see the value in creating a centralized database.
“There are probably millions of data points when you consider how many researchers are doing research in the U.S.,” he said. “Historically these researchers have not been required to share their data. However, an increasing number of funding agencies and organizations, including USDA, are requiring that researchers share their data. If researchers apply for a grant from USDA, they are required to include information about their data management plans in their grant proposals.
“Researchers see the value of sharing this data, but this is not a common practice which involves allocating time and resources. This means someone on their research team would have to organize and share the data. There are probably millions of data points (big data) when you consider how many horticulture researchers there are in the U.S.”
Creating a central database
Based on the need for collecting and organizing the controlled environment research data that is being generated, the task force established the Controlled Environment Agriculture Open Data (CEAOD) project [https://ceaod.github.io/]. The project aims to promote data sharing to accelerate CEA research.
The CEAOD website provides guidelines on how to upload the data. The task force developed the guidelines, which include three sets of data that can be uploaded to the website.
“One set is environmental data, including environmental controlled parameters such as temperature, carbon dioxide, relative humidity, and ventilation,” he said. “These data points are usually collected automatically by sensors. Another set of data is biological data, which is usually collected by humans. These biomass production yield parameters include shoot and root biomass and plant height and weight. The final document is the metadata which are descriptions of the experimental setups and data sets. It is a file that explains the experiments. It describes how the experiments were done.
“There is a certain format that is recommended to be followed to upload the data on the CEAOD website. The step-by-step process is listed on the website. There are no restrictions on which crops the data can be submitted. Our goal is to establish a platform to host a large number of crop production data sets to allow for the development of machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms aimed at improving crop production efficiency.”
Leading by example
This winter GLASE will have a student collecting and organizing environmental and biological research data.
“The data will be uploaded to the CEAOD database and we will be documenting these activities,” Mattos said. “We will create a guideline of recommendations. We also plan to work with researchers from other institutions to demonstrate how the data can be organized and uploaded to create awareness and how to use the database.
“We hope this initial GLASE contribution will incentivize other researchers to share their data and will facilitate the uploading process. Access to the CEAOD database is free. It is an open platform and anyone can contribute to the development of this database tool.”
Once research data is collected and available for dissemination, the equipment used to produce controlled environment crops will be able to optimize the environmental conditions for a wide variety of crops, including lettuce, tomatoes, and cannabis.
Benefits to the horticulture industry
Mattos said private companies would also benefit from the collection of data and creating a centralized database.
“These companies need more data because it would allow them to analyze the data to develop new products and identify new markets,” he said. “Unfortunately, many of these companies don’t want to share their data. They are very proprietary about their data. They see that collecting and analyzing this data can put them ahead of their competition.
“Many private companies see the need for more data and how it can be valuable but are unwilling to share their own data. But like in other industries there are early adopters. I believe there will be companies that step up and will share their data with the horticulture industry. Hopefully, industry people will be willing to contribute and work on this database as well.”
Mattos said one of the big applications with this project is related to machine learning and artificial intelligence.
“With these applications, large sets of data are needed in order to create baselines,” he said. “Using the data, machines can be taught. Currently, growers’ production knowledge and opinion are more accurate for growing crops than artificial intelligence predictions. Growers are still more reliable, but it is just a matter of time before the use of big data and artificial intelligence will be able to match the growers in regards to optimizing growth.
“We are trying to develop this platform between the growers and controlled environment researchers and the machine learning/data computer scientists. I’m not sure the controlled environment researchers have grasped the potential that is available. We are not using this technology. Establishing this platform, as we collect and disseminate the data, there is real potential to help the advancement of the horticulture industry.”
For more: Erico Mattos, Greenhouse Lighting and Systems Engineering (GLASE), (302) 290-1560; em796@cornell.edu.
More info on CEAOD
Want to learn more about the Controlled Environment Agriculture Open Data project? Then check out these two upcoming events.
Aug. 4, 2-3 p.m. EDT
GLASE webinar: Controlled Environment Agriculture Open Data project. Presented by Erico Mattos, executive director of GLASE, and Kenneth Tran, founder of Koidra LLC.
Aug. 13, 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m. EDT
American Society for Horticultural Science presentation: The Promise of Big Data and New Technologies in Controlled Environment Agriculture. Presented by Erico Mattos.
David Kuack is a freelance technical writer in Fort Worth, Texas; dkuack@gmail.com.