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Affordable, Image-Based Crop Monitoring Using Smartphones and Microcontrollers
Dr. Krishna Nemali and his research group at Purdue University are tackling crop-monitoring challenges facing hydroponic and flower growers. Of the group’s many research foci, image-based crop monitoring using smartphones and microcontrollers has been at the forefront of Purdue’s technological advancements for the CEA industry.
Smart Sensors From Purdue University
With a mission to deliver easy-to-use, rapid and affordable technologies to the controlled environment agriculture (CEA) industry, Dr. Krishna Nemali and his research group at Purdue University are tackling crop-monitoring challenges facing hydroponic and flower growers. Of the group’s many research foci, image-based crop monitoring using smartphones and microcontrollers has been at the forefront of Purdue’s technological advancements for the CEA industry.
Image-based crop monitoring made practical and affordable
Image analysis is being used for monitoring plants in conventional, field-based agriculture through satellites, drones, and camera-mounted vehicles. However, these technologies are not practical for greenhouses and indoor farms due to the architecture of these facilities, which limits the movement of drones or camera-mounted vehicles over plants. Dr. Nemali and his research group are working to bring image-based crop monitoring on smartphones as handheld sensors. For installations where using cameras fixed to the growing systems is preferred (e.g. vertical farms with multi-tiered racking) or applications where continuous monitoring is useful, the research team is also building a system with a Raspberry Pi microcontroller and high-resolution camera, which sends the images to a central computer for processing and interpretation.
Left: Dr. Krishna Nemali. Right: smartphone sensor
Compared image-based monitoring to human evaluation
To test the efficacy of image-based crop monitoring, the research team grew lettuce and tomatoes under optimal and suboptimal conditions. In a blind trial, crop growth was visually evaluated daily by people (using a rating system) and by image-based sensors. As Dr. Nemali explains, the image-based system recorded statistically significant differences in crop growth between optimal and sub-optimal conditions 3-4 days before the human eye could detect differences.
“When you regularly take these photos and develop growth curves, you can monitor how your crop is measuring up against expected optimal growth. If these images indicate an issue, growers can resolve this before it is too late,” says Dr. Nemali.
The images can also be used to assess nitrogen status, germination percentage, and rate, and color progression, allowing the grower to monitor crop health, planting material, and estimate the time to harvest. Plant nitrogen status is usually measured in a laboratory, which is expensive and time-consuming or using expensive chlorophyll meters. Dr. Nemali’s research developed accurate algorithms using images captured by smartphones and microcontrollers to rapidly estimate plant nitrogen status.
Different plant measurements can be measured using images collected by a smartphone or microcontroller
Instantaneously assessing plant nitrogen
“Imaging the benefits of instantaneously assessing plant nitrogen status in CEA industry. Growers can supply fertilizers based on plant needs and avoid over or under application rates,” says Dr. Nemali
As these technologies are being developed at Purdue University, they will be made available to growers at a low cost, with any generated funds being poured back into further research and development. The smartphone app should be available in the spring of 2022, with a low purchase price and yearly license.
With photo-quality varying according to the camera, ambient light conditions, and distance from the crop, normalization processes have been incorporated into algorithms to ensure high-quality analyses. To account for differences in distance from the crop between imaging sessions, each photo is taken with a standard, measured object in the frame.
“Let’s say we have a red square with a known area of 25 cm2 and we place it beside the crop in each image. The computer will recognize that object, uses its area to determine the right pixel-area conversion and apply it to the plant. This creates a relative scale and eliminates height/distance altogether,” says Dr. Nemali.
To normalize for different light conditions, the technology considers different reflected wavelengths, both of which are affected by light intensity. By taking the ratio of two wavelengths, the setup can eliminate the effects of light intensity on the images altogether.
A demonstration of smartphone-based image technology can be viewed on Dr. Nemali’s website at this link.
Additional areas of research
Aside from image-based crop monitoring, Dr. Nemali’s research group is conducting extensive research on nitrogen management in hydroponically grown organic lettuce production.
“The yields of organic lettuce is usually lower compared to conventional production, because of challenges with nitrogen availability to plants in organic production. While organic lettuce does command a higher price, we still need to increase these yields to make it sustainable and organic produce more available to consumers,” explains Dr. Nemali.
Other areas of research include the use of ultraviolet radiation and ozone to reduce the risk of E. coli contamination in lettuce, and the optimization of production techniques to improve the nutritional density of leafy greens.
For more information on ongoing research in Dr. Nemali’s research group:
Dr. Krishna Nemali
Assistant Professor in Controlled Environment Agriculture
Purdue University
https://www.purdue.edu/hla/sites/cea/
24 June 2021
Author: Rose Seguin
© HortiDaily.com
When You Plant A Farm In A City, It Tastes Like The Future
“We’ve literally flipped the farm on its end,” smiles Matt Barnard, co-founder and executive chairman of Plenty, “We’ve developed technology to deliver all the things plants need--nutrients, water, climate
By Changing America Staff
June 4, 2021
From the outside, the warehouse looks like any of the other industrial manufacturing buildings you find in this part of San Francisco. But that's just a facade. When you walk in, it's as if you have entered a portal to another world. In fact, that's exactly what it is. Welcome to the future of agriculture.
Instead of a traditional farmhouse, you'll find the sort of office space you'd see at Silicon Valley companies like Facebook or Apple. But keep walking and you'll see the farm. Instead of sprawling fields of crops stretching across acres of Iowa or Illinois farmland, you'll see a space the size of a Target store that resembles a high-tech luxury car assembly line, featuring vertical tubes that sprout two stories tall, each one packed with leafy greens that are lovingly surrounded by thousands of UV lights.
“We’ve literally flipped the farm on its end,” smiles Matt Barnard, co-founder and executive chairman of Plenty, “We’ve developed technology to deliver all the things plants need--nutrients, water, climate. And we do that in ways that are not only efficient but they also allow us to control flavor to an extent that's never been possible before.”
The field hands here look more like astronauts than farmers. They wear what resemble full-body hazmat suits, which help maintain an impeccably strict level of hygiene. This prevents any contamination of the plants, since one of the main selling points of Plenty's produce is that it doesn't use pesticides. As workers bustle about the warehouse with iPads, checking data points that help them engineer perfect bunches of arugula and kale, you might forget you’re at a farm at all--apart from that one employee over there wearing a cowboy hat.
“Things that would normally take years on the farm I grew up on taking just months here," says Barnard. "Yield gains that take a decade in a field, we deliver in a few weeks. There’s no way to do that other than data. This new way of farming has really demanded that we be a data-driven company.”
Plenty's intense focus on data allows it to precisely calibrate its usage of California's most precious resource: water. The Golden State is the leading producer of agriculture in the United States, and consequently, the state with the highest water usage for farming--in fact, 40 percent of all water used in the state goes into agriculture. For the past decade, however, California has been suffering from brutal drought, the driest period in recorded state history. It’s a full-blown crisis that is only getting worse as the planet warms up further.
That's where the genius of Plenty comes in. The obsessive attention to data allows the company to increase the efficiency of its yield and cut down dramatically on the water necessary to grow it. Compared to nearby lettuce farms in Salinas and Yuma, Plenty is saving approximately a million gallons of water per week.
In fact, the company argues that it is as much an infrastructure resource as an agricultural enterprise. Because it grows locally, it ensures nearby residents have delicious food to eat--and jobs to work at--all year round, even in barren food deserts, and even during times of severe supply-chain crises (wildfires, drought, ransomware attacks or, say, a global pandemic).
Because everything happens in an indoor controlled climate, Plenty has no seasons. It can plant, grow and harvest late summer plants like its pristine strawberries every month of the year.
Plenty isn't just growing food, though. “Because we are able to grow 365 days a year, and grow plants that taste like late summer plants all year round, we get to invest in our people," says Barnard. "They’re here as long as they want to be here. It’s not seasonal, we know who’s going to be here next year, everyone gets to grow their income and their careers.”
The company is expanding quickly. They have a contract with the berry giant Driscoll’s to start producing strawberries, and they’re building a second farm in the unlikely working-class community of Compton, south of Los Angeles.
Barnard envisions dozens and eventually hundreds of vertical farms across the country. This is where other countries, especially China, are headed fast and Plenty makes a strong argument that American federal and state governments should start planting the seeds of vertical farms as quickly as possible to avoid falling behind.
If you’re interested in learning more, check out their website, https://www.plenty.ag/, and try some of their famous lettuce next time you’re in the Bay area.
Published on Jun 04, 2021
Derby Vertical Farming Startup Gets £500K Funding to Develop ‘All In One’ Sensor
Derby-based Light Science Technologies delivers lighting, science and research-proven plant monitoring technology and software in partnership with world-leading university research teams
INVESTMENT NEWS / 13 JAN 2021
Derby-based Light Science Technologies delivers lighting, science and research-proven plant monitoring technology and software in partnership with world-leading university research teams. It delivers the right solution across multiple indoor applications such as vertical farming, medicinal plants, and greenhouses. Its full turnkey solution for Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) applications for next-generation scalable farming helps customers grow more with less.
Investment to boost agricultural productivity
Light Science Technologies just secured part of the £90M government investment to support the most innovative technology to boost agricultural productivity and set food production systems towards net zero emissions by 2040.
Furthermore, it is one of the 23 feasibility projects that has been awarded up to £500,000 from £4.3M funding that is meant for Science and Technology into Practice feasibility competition, as part of UKRI’s £90 million Transforming Food Production (TFP) program. Innovate UK drives productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realize the potential of new ideas. Notably, Innovate UK is part of UK Research and Innovation.
Simon Deacon, CEO of Light Science Technologies added: “This is an especially important boost to our business. To be selected by Innovate UK is confirmation of the urgent need for more sustainable, productive, and cost-effective solutions in farming. Investment in UK technology and innovation in this sector is crucial in achieving a better approach to agricultural production and reducing emissions.”
Innovate UK Executive Chair Dr Ian Campbell said: “There are many innovative projects in our latest feasibility competition showcasing ideas for improving productivity and cutting emissions that range across the whole agricultural sector, from arable, to livestock, to sensor technology and to new biopesticides. Our funding and support for these projects is ongoing.”
Groundbreaking sensor technology
Along with partnership with Nottingham Trent University, the company will lead the project to develop a growing sensor and innovative transmission node for vertical farms over the next six months, which is in synergy with their light and science offering.
The IoT precision data solution for vertical farming will help in boosting 0roductivity and efficiency, thereby reflecting the government’s drive to help the agricultural sector grow economically with less environmental impact.
Light Science Technologies’ ‘all in one’ indoor farm sensor will let farms to monitor and control their environment by measuring key areas such as light, water, air, temperature, humidity, oxygen and soil, thereby ensuring optimal plant productivity and yield. Also, this sensor will form a vital part of its bespoke offering, reducing energy and saving costs using technology and real-time data.
Demand for CEA market!
Of late, there is a growing demand for the Controlled Environment Agricultural (CEA) market, which is growing fast at a CAGR of 21%. The demand is mainly from AgTech CEA farmers looking to install or replace existing indoor farms to achieve a maximum yield on crops for optimum profitability. However, the high startup costs attract investment from stakeholders eyeing the potentially significant ROI opportunity.
Light Science Technologies provides custom-made solution for the CEA market, and works with growers to provide an integrated, cost-effective and low maintenance solution that can be used across different crops to achieve maximum yield. Eventually, it creates the full growing recipe of lighting, nutrients, and the environment.
Notably, Light Science Technologies is focused on becoming a technology-driven trailblazer in vertical farming innovation and technology over the next four years as it eyes to shape up the future of the CEA market.
Virginia Researchers Are Studying ‘The Sound of Plants Dancing’ To Better The Future of Agriculture
Using experimental technology, the scientists are trying to figure out how the sonification of plant movements could be used to assess plant health and aid farmers who need to monitor their greens at an industrial scale
By Katherine Hafner
The Virginian-Pilot 9/7/2020
What Do Dancing Plants Sound Like?
© Virginia Tech/The Virginian-Pilot/TNS Some of the pepper plants being studied by researchers at Virginia Tech. The researchers record the plants' long-term movements  sped up into \"dances\"  then convert those patterns into sound as a way to evaluate plant health based on responses to environmental conditions.
It seems like the start of a philosophical essay question. But researchers at Virginia Tech think the answer could be one tool wielded in the future of agriculture in the commonwealth and beyond.
Using experimental technology, the scientists are trying to figure out how the sonification of plant movements could be used to assess plant health and aid farmers who need to monitor their greens at an industrial scale.
They are focused on indoor or so-called controlled-environment agriculture. Think greenhouses with LED lights and plants in hydroponic systems, using liquid nutrient solutions instead of soil.
“When you grow a plant inside a building, you really control ... introducing any insects or pathogens, minimizing the use of pesticides” and the like, said Bingyu Zhao, the lead researcher and associate professor in the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences. “But you can still have disease problems or sometimes they could have environmental stress.”
Maybe the temperature’s too high, he said, or the nitrogen levels are off. “It’s all not good for the plant growth.”
Imagine a grower using an indoor facility with dozens of rows of plants. Unlike in a small backyard garden, they can’t continuously check on every individual plant to monitor the effects of all those variables.
So Zhao got the idea to set up cameras to do it instead, using a small number of pepper plants for observation.
The high-resolution cameras capture the continuous movements of the plants. Over times, patterns develop.
These “micro movements” are mostly naked to the human eye, Zhao said. But they become apparent when sped up in time-lapse videos.
The even more unconventional part comes next.
The researchers take the data they’ve collected on plant movements and convert it into sound in a process called sonification.
In that way, a human could hear patterns present among the plants. The idea is to eventually be able to link certain sounds to indicators that a plant needs better light, for example.
Computers, analyzing the data at a large scale, could learn “what is a good sound and what is a bad sound,” Zhao said.
He works with professors across other disciplines in engineering and in the School of Performing Arts to bring together the different elements.
The plant movement project is just one part of the university’s new statewide SmartFarm Innovation Network, said Susan Duncan, associate director of the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station.
Two years ago, the school brought together stakeholders in the agriculture and food processing fields from around Virginia to hear their concerns and interests, she said.
One big takeaway: technological innovation was on everyone’s mind. In order to maintain a future workforce and catch up with evolving needs, they needed to think outside traditional agricultural techniques, she said.
So the decentralized network was born, consisting of 11 off-campus research centers including the Hampton Roads Agricultural Research And Extension Center in Virginia Beach. Though the center in our region isn’t involved in the “dancing plants” project, it has plenty of its own areas of study, including water quality and boxwood blight disease.
There are more than 100 research projects connected to the network delving into the future of agriculture.
With growing plants indoors, for example, “you can’t just say, ’I’m going to put this LED light over my plant and see how it goes,’” Duncan said. “There’s a science behind it.”
In the operating room, surgeons often use sound to be able to keep track of routine measurements such as blood pressure while performing surgery, Duncan said.
Applying that to plants, she said, is “how they can help guide us to make decisions for them.”
“It’s kind of a cool concept. If they start ’screaming,’ whatever that sounds like, we can pay attention.”
©2020 The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.)
Visit The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.) at pilotonline.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Nine High-Tech Farms In Singapore Awarded Nearly $40 Million To Ramp Up Food Production
The amount was made available through the "30x30 Express" grant launched by the SFA on April 17 this year. The aim of the grant was to meet 30 percent of Singapore's nutritional needs with food produced locally by 2030
SEP 9, 2020
Shabana Begum
SINGAPORE - Nine urban farms have been offered a total of $39.4 million by the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) as part of efforts to support the growth of local agrifood enterprises and ramp up local food production over the next six to 24 months.
The amount was made available through the "30x30 Express" grant launched by the SFA on April 17 this year. The aim of the grant was to meet 30 percent of Singapore's nutritional needs with food produced locally by 2030.
More than 40 proposals were received by May 29, the closing date for proposals, and SFA said that the nine selected incorporated highly productive farming systems that could be constructed and implemented quickly to achieve high production levels.
All the proposals were assessed based on benchmarks such as productivity, project feasibility, economic viability, and the farms' capabilities.
SFA had to increase its original $30 million budget for the grant to close to $40 million to support the nine companies' proposals, said the agency in a press release on Wednesday (Sept 9).
Seven of the nine companies have accepted the SFA offer.
They are vegetable farms ComCrop, Green Harvest, I.F.F.I, LivFresh, Genesis One Tech Farm and VertiVegies, and egg farm Chew's Agriculture.
The funds will go towards projects such as building additional greenhouses, leveraging technology and automation to reduce manpower, and bringing artificial intelligence to high-tech farms.
SFA said the companies awarded the grant will be able to tap it to defray costs while accelerating their expansion.
For instance, I.F.F.I will set up a mega high-tech indoor vegetable farm that depends on AI to monitor the growth of its leafy greens, along with an advanced environmental control system to ensure optimum yield all year round. The farm will also use an innovative water treatment system that reduces the amount of bacteria in the crops and extends the shelf life of its produce.
Ms. Grace Fu, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment, said: "While we continue to plan to tackle our long-term challenges, we also need to respond swiftly to the immediate global food supply challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Supporting our agri-food industry and augmenting their production capabilities remains a key strategy in strengthening Singapore's food supply resilience," she added.
Singapore Food Agency (SFA) has awarded close to $40 million of funding to nine companies to help them adopt technology to ramp up local food production. This marks another significant step towards reaching our goal of fulfilling 30% of our nutritional needs through local sources by 2030.
The “30x30 Express” grant was launched in April this year to accelerate our efforts to strengthen food security. The COVID-19 pandemic and its adverse impact on global supply chains, has underscored the importance of local food production as a buffer against supply disruptions. With Singapore importing more than 90% of our food, we are particularly vulnerable to fluctuations in the global food supply, which can stem from diseases, trade tensions, or climate change.
I visited two of the awarded companies, ComCrop and I.F.F.I, and was impressed by how they have integrated technological innovation into their farming. ComCrop’s vegetables are grown using NFT hydroponics system, which requires 90% less water and nutrients compared to traditional soil-based farming. I.F.F.I leverages AI farming systems integrated with IoT monitoring to achieve optimum growing conditions all year around. The grant will provide them with an added boost to adopt highly productive farming systems to ramp up production over the next 6 to 24 months.
Let us play our part to strengthen food security by supporting our local farmers! Do lookout for the SG Fresh Produce logo and give local produce a try when you go on your next groceries shopping trip!
Farms in Singapore can tap on SFA's existing Agriculture Productivity Fund (APF), which aims to help them modernize and adopt advanced farming systems, as well as co-fund the test-bedding of technologies.
Enterprise Singapore has also set aside over $55 million to help local agriculture and aquaculture companies build new capabilities and innovate to grow more with less.
SFA has also urged consumers to buy local.
"We urge consumers to support our local farms and buy local produce, which can be identified easily by our new SG Fresh Produce logo," said Mr. Lim Kok Thai, SFA chief executive officer.
Lead photo: Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu with ComCrop CEO Peter Barber during a visit to the farm
TOPICS: AGRICULTURE AND FARMING MINISTRY OF SUSTAINABILITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT AWARDS AND PRIZES
Are We Ready For Indoor Wheat Farms?
They Could Feed The World on a Fraction
of The Land Area, But at What Energy Cost?
By Emma Bryce
July 31, 2020
Bread made from high-rise farms may be a thing of the future. Researchers have found that if we started growing wheat in stacked vertical farms instead of the field, we could generate 600 times more of this grain than traditional farming methods do—all while freeing up huge amounts of land from agriculture.
But before this could become a reality, we’d need some serious technological innovation to offset the controversially high energy costs of vertical farms.
Wheat currently supplies 20% of calories and protein for the world’s population, which is projected to grow to 11 billion people by 2100. With that expanding population, we’ll need a 60% increase in the worldwide production of grain. The researchers on the new study wanted to investigate how vertical farming—the production of crops across multiple floors in enclosed buildings—could help to plug that gap.
To find out, they used a crop simulation tool called DSSAT-NWheat, which projects yield based on the simulated field conditions, incorporating inputs like temperature, light, and water. This simulation showed that if wheat were grown inside a 10-floor vertical farm, covering one hectare of ground land, and under optimal conditions, the crop could generate almost 2000 metric tons of grain per hectare. That’s about 600 times more than the current annual world average of 3.2 metrics tons per hectare. Ramping things up to simulate a 100-floor farm, the researchers showed that the vertical farm could generate 19,400 metric tons of grain per hectare —6000 times more than the average hectare of farmland produces every year.
In some countries, vertical farming is already used to produce foods like lettuce and herbs where plenty can be grown at more confined scales. But crops like wheat—which require more space and typically need a lot of sunshine—haven’t yet been commercially produced in this environment. Showing that we could grow staple crops in this way, instead of only niche foods like salad greens, is an important step.
This massively efficient production approach would generate enough food to feed an expanding world population. By growing food vertically on smaller plots of land, it could also drastically curtail farmland expansion, an enormous source of emissions, and a driver of biodiversity decline. Growing food indoors, under perfectly controlled conditions, would shield crops from the vagaries of climate change and therefore bolster food security. It would also reduce pesticide use, and limit the chances that they’d get into soil and water.
But as the researchers caution, we shouldn’t get too swept up by these possibilities: farming wheat in high-rises—such a tantalizing idea—nevertheless comes with one considerable caveat. The cost, both financially and energy-wise, of artificially lighting up the interior of a vertical farm so that crops can photosynthesize, is enormous, enough to draw a question mark around the viability of this farming method. This is a problem that already haunts vertical farming in general: considering that its image depends partly on the idea that it’s better for the environment, the high energy usage—and consequent emissions contribution—makes it somewhat controversial. The researchers also point out that most field-based cereal farming around the world is heavily subsidized to make it financially viable, so the elevated costs of vertical wheat farming would make it difficult to compete with traditional modes of production.
Innovation in energy production could go some way to closing this gap. The researchers highlight the growing potential of renewable energy to provide all the light needed to keep crops growing artificially indoors. But even so, if vertical wheat farming does take off, it’s likely to form only a tiny part of the market at first, until we figure out how to make it less costly. And in the meantime, the researchers acknowledge that there are more urgent agricultural challenges to tackle, and which we already know can improve food security and ease the pressures on our planet—such as reducing food waste, and diversifying our food sources so that we’re perhaps not so reliant on single monocrops.
Yet, it may also be the case that entirely separate forces speed up energy innovation and make vertical wheat farming a reality one day. For example, the association between wheat prices and food riots we’ve seen in the past “could be reason enough to develop and install some indoor wheat production facilities,” the researchers suggest. Climate change in regions already beset by food insecurity might also hasten the arrival of bold new farming approaches like this one.
So, while we might not quite be ready for vertical wheat farming, options like these are likely to become more important in our changing world. “Although it is unlikely that indoor wheat farming will be economically competitive with current market prices in the near future,” the researchers say, “it could play an essential role in hedging against future climate or other unexpected disruptions to the food system.”
Source: Asseng et. al. “Wheat yield potential in controlled-environment vertical farms.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2020.
How Vertical Farms Could Be Ready To Take-Off
A new interdisciplinary study combining biology and engineering sets down steps towards accelerating the growth of vertical farming, including the use of aeroponics which uses nutrient-enriched aerosols in place of soil, reports Science Daily
24 Jul 2020
Study identifies future research areas needed to accelerate growth of vertical farming using aeroponics.
A new interdisciplinary study combining biology and engineering sets down steps towards accelerating the growth of vertical farming, including the use of aeroponics which uses nutrient-enriched aerosols in place of soil, reports Science Daily.
Accelerate sustainable growth of vertical farming
The study was carried out by the John Innes Centre, the University of Bristol, and the aeroponic technology provider LettUs Grow. It identifies future research areas needed to accelerate the sustainable growth of vertical farming using aeroponic systems.
Dr. Antony Dodd, a group leader at the John Innes Centre and senior author of the study, says: “By bringing fundamental biological insights into the context of the physics of growing plants in an aerosol, we can help the vertical farming business become more productive more quickly while producing healthier food with less environmental impact.”
Vertical farming is a type of indoor agriculture where crops are cultivated in stacked systems with water, lighting, and nutrient sources carefully controlled.
Seven areas of future research
The study, which appears in the journal New Phytologist and is called Getting to the Roots of Aeroponic Indoor Farming, lays out seven steps – strategic areas of future research needed to underpin increased productivity and sustainability of aeroponic vertical farms.
These seek to understand:
Why aeroponic cultivation can be more productive than hydroponic or soil cultivation.
The relationship between aeroponic cultivation and 24-hour circadian rhythms of plants.
Root development of a range of crops in aeroponic conditions.
The relationship between aerosol droplet size and deposition and plant performance.
How we can establish frameworks for comparing vertical farming technologies for a range of crops.
How aeroponic methods affect microbial interactions with plant roots.
The nature of recycling of root exudates (fluids secreted by the roots of plants) within the nutrient solutions of closed aeroponic systems.
The report argues that a driver of technological innovation in vertical farms is minimizing operation costs whilst maximizing productivity – and that investment in fundamental biological research has a significant role.
Genetically tune crops to grow in vertical farms
John Innes Centre researchers have bred a line of broccoli adapted to grow indoors for a major supermarket and one of the aims of research will be to test how we can genetically tune more crops to grow in the controlled space of vertical farms.
Bethany Eldridge, a researcher at the University of Bristol studying root-environment interactions and first author of the study adds: “Given that 80% of agricultural land worldwide is reported to have moderate or severe erosion, the ability to grow crops in a soilless system with minimal fertilizers and pesticides is advantageous because it provides an opportunity to grow crops in areas facing soil erosion or other environmental issues such as algal blooms in local water bodies that may have been driven by traditional, soil-based, agriculture.”
Aeroponics is associated with very little water, automation, and high tech systems. But what is the current potential of aeroponics technology to grow food or cannabis crops economically?
Hugo Claver
Web editor for Future Farming
Lead Photo: - Photo: ThisIsEngineering