Providing Tailored Crop Recipes, So Clients Can Hit the Ground Running

By Rebekka Boekhout

July 8, 2021

“You could best divide our products and services into three parts, being: external research and in-house contract research in our R&D labs, providing total indoor farming solutions, and collaborating in research projects,” explains Maarten Vandecruys, co-founder and CTO at Urban Crop Solutions (UCS). 

The Plant Biology team

UCS, a Belgian pioneer company in the indoor farming scene, recently made headlines with the announcement that the research consortium with whom they are developing the next generation of bread products to support future space missions, SpaceBakery, won the Gold Prize at the Global Space Exploration Conference. But intergalactic missions aren’t the only thing on the company’s mind…

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UCS's ModuleX growing solution in action

Tailored recipes
“We are already looking into expanding our Research Centre due to the high demand for our contract research services, and our indoor biology research expertise. Our added value is to provide a completely tailored plant recipe as part of our end-to-end solution offering,” said Maarten. Normally, a product will be delivered and it’s up to the customer to see how the product works. However, UCS firmly believes that aftercare delivers the best results.

Depending on the crops to be grown, the client first has to give certain specifics about the preferred crop. Then UCS will look into its existing growing recipes, and whether it fits their needs. Eventually, if it’s something new or deviating from it, then UCS starts research on finding the best growing envelope for the client. “We’d rather sit down with them, providing the right solution so clients can hit the ground running,” Maarten notes.

Read the complete article here

For more information:
Maarten Vandecruys, Co-founder & CTO
Urban Crop Solutions
maarten.vandecruys@urbancropsolutions.com
www.urbancropsolutions.com

Growing Vegetables In Antarctica In the EDEN ISS Project

Status Report From NASA Biological & Physical Science

July 1, 2021

Scientific research studies to determine how to grow plants in extreme environments on Earth will help NASA understand how to grow plants in extreme conditions on the moon or Mars. Growth of crop plants in lunar or Mars habitation systems will be essential for meeting astronaut nutritional needs and maintaining astronaut health during long-duration exploration missions. To facilitate these studies, an international agreement between NASA and DLR (German Space Agency) has been signed to enable research collaboration on the EDEN (Evolution and Design of Environmentally-Closed Nutrition-Sources) ISS project at the German Neumayer III Station in Antarctica.

The EDEN module is designed to simulate a plant production system that might operate in a surface setting in space and is used to provide fresh food to the 10 “over-wintering” EDEN crew members. Biological and Physical Sciences research has been conducted at the EDEN site under the Space Biology grant titled “Spectral Imaging within the EDEN ISS Project - An Antarctic Analog for Enhancing Exploration Life Support.” For this Space Biology grant, PI Dr. Robert Ferl and Co-I Dr. Anna-Lisa Paul (both from the University of Florida) traveled to Antarctica to conduct their research.

Kennedy Space Center (KSC) continues to support EDEN ISS. For this project, KSC contractor Jess Bunchek is in residence in Antarctica as one of the crew members at Neumayer III where she is operating and maintaining the plant chamber with the help of DLR colleagues at Bremen, Germany. She is growing crops that have been grown on ISS for BPS-funded experiments to compare growth in the two settings. She is tracking her time spent on horticultural activities, measuring the yields of the different crops, taking microbial samples for post-mission analysis, and helping administer surveys to the crew to obtain their opinions on having fresh food in their diet. Jess arrived in Antarctica in January 2021 and will be there until February 2022. Follow Jess as she journals her account of the journey to EDEN ISS.

Watch the video about the EDEN ISS project