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Lecture 8b - Controlled Environment Agriculture
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Feeding the Future
Can a Mars or Lunar greenhouse help feed people on Earth? In Module 8, learn how space-farming models can be applied on Earth as we move towards a global population of 10 billion people. Discover innovative controlled agricultural systems, learn more about how plants grow, and get a chance to produce your own hydroponically grown vegetables at home! With Dr. Gene Giacomelli, UA Controlled Environment Agriculture Center.
Enseigné par
Kevin E. Bonine, PhD
Director of Education and Outreach
[MUSIC]
I'm Dr Gene Giacomelli and
I'm here to speak to you about feeding the future and the present.
This is the second part of a three part series.
This one is controlled environment hydroponic production in greenhouses.
And how it complements open field production in the soil.
The traditional open field agriculture.
My educational goals are to introduce you to how food crops are currently grown in
greenhouses, to define and describe CEA and different hydroponic systems,
define some of the fundamental science of controlled environment plant production.
It is a science.
Yes, it is a bit of an art as well.
But we need that science to make it practical.
And then give you some real-world production facilities examples.
I am the director and the professor of the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center.
And we are a group of scientists and engineers that focus on food production
systems in many places around the world in controlled environments.
We have students, faculty, staff that come together
to utilize our resources more effectively in the design and
the operation of controlled environment systems.
Which help feed the world.
We focus on energy, on water, on plant nutrients, on labor aspects.
And on what it costs, the capital investments and the operating costs.
Greenhouse production systems are for people.
The focus is on the plant, so we need to understand biology.
Our goals are high quality and high yielding crops, safe,
secure food of high quality.
Pesticide free whenever possible,
the efficient use of land, water, and nutrient resources.
And to have a predictable, dependable harvest of food when needed.
We'll look at the genetic potential of any seed or
any plant is modified by having the proper environment.
So, give it the proper environment and watch it grow.
For the aerial environment, we need air temperature and
relative humidity to be controlled.
We need to provide light and carbon dioxide for photosynthesis,
to have air movement, to provide physical support for the plant.
And then access for labor, for
transplanting, maintenance of the plant, and harvest.
Then there's the root environment.
We need to provide water of course and
nutrients that are dissolved in the water because these are hydroponic systems.
In the water, the oxygen needs to be dissolved.
The temperature of the water is critical, not too warm or
else the dissolved oxygen levels drop.
Too cold, the plant won't grow very quickly.
We need water flow movement across the roots of the plant,
we want the roots to be in darkness.
Because, typically, they are grown in the soil, in the earth, and are not in light.
And then we need physical support, something for those roots to hang on to.
In hydroponics that's growing without soil.
But maybe with a substrate.
We'll look at those.
We need a water pump.
And we need a plumbing distribution system to bring the nutrient water to
the root zone from a storage tank.
The water returns to the storage tank, whatever's not used by the plant.
That is collected to be recycled and reused with the potential for
100% utilization of all the water.
Hydroponic systems are named appropriately by their type.
Top drip irrigation systems in soilless culture,
meaning drip irrigation to the top of the plant.
The nutrient film technique,
a thin film of water that flows across the roots of the plant.
Deep water culture, floating raft system.
Aeroponics, no water at all, just the roots dangling in the air being sprayed or
misted by nozzles with water that has nutrient dissolved in them.
And aquaponics,
the combination of producing fish to use the fish waste as fertilizer for
the hydroponic production of the plants, as you see in the picture here.
Then you need a controlled environment, the air around the plant, above the plant.
We need a structure with a cover and
a glazing to make the greenhouse effect to grow the plants.
We need light either from the sun or from lamps which provides the photosynthesis.
Depending on the time of year, we may need a heater in the evening and
in the night time for keeping the plants warm.
Or a cooler during the day, for
lowering the air temperature which gets too warm because of the greenhouse effect.
We need a means to move the plants through the greenhouse to harvest.
To bring them to a packing area so they can be shipped in a safe manner and
that they're produced clean and ready to eat.
Two types of extremes of greenhouses on the left a very complex expensive
greenhouse, highly controlled, high technology greenhouse.
On the right, a low cost, high tunnel,
actually having no heater at all just the greenhouse effect with a thin film cover.
And no hydroponics, growing directly in the earth.
Two great extremes and many opportunities in between.
The example here of this commercial high technology facility here in Wilcox,
Arizona growing tomatoes.
This is a recirculating hydroponic system.
Very efficient use of water, very high productivity.
75, 80 kilograms per square meter per year.
At the seedling stage, this is an example of the top drip irrigation.
You see the black tubings,
two per each group of two plants that feed the water and the nutrients to them.
They are grown in a four inch by four inch Rockwool cube sitting on top of
a Rockwool slab about one meter, three feet plus long.
This could also be replaced for coconut core, an organic material
instead of the inert substrate Rockwool.
Example of the deep water floating lettuce hydroponic system.
This is basically an entire greenhouse bay,
that is about one foot deep and flooded like a swimming pool.
And the plants are on trays that are floating.
These are lettuce plants that are floating on the water.
Lets look at some examples of why this has natural resource savings.
Less water, up to five to eight times and
even much more depending on the designs for irrigation water.
Example, lettuce grown in the open field uses more than
160 gallons of water per head of lettuce.
In the controlled environment, hydroponic greenhouse,
that goes down to one and a half gallons per head, just for irrigation.
If we add the amount we need for cooling in that greenhouse,
then that goes up to ten and a half gallons per head of lettuce.
Still significantly less than any open field.
Less space and more productivity.
We typically say in general, ten times increase in yield of productivity for
a greenhouse grown crop compared to that same crop grown in the open field.
Lettuce can produce on the order of 18 tons per acre per
year of lettuce in the open field.
In the greenhouse, that multiplied more than ten is 185 tons per acre per year.
And it can be done on a continuous basis every 30 days, having a harvest.
Even more intense systems are the growth rooms or plant factories.
Where artificial light is used, very, very high density, many, many layers
of growing the crops under the lighting in a recirculating hydroponic system.
They require a lot of electrical energy, and are being evaluated now for
their productivity.
The technology is still developing and
maybe the biggest challenge is experienced growers.
It is that new of a commercial system that we are not producing enough students,
growers, experienced personnel to work in these systems.
The term vertical farm is really a specialized version of this indoor growing
using LED lights.
It's the first time you see the pink lights here, which will be replacing
the high pressure sodium lights that had been used in the past.
Very popular for commercial production in the urban agricultural components
of production agriculture.
There's very few in operation.
And their businesses will yet
to be determined how well, how viable they will be.
This example of Green Sense farms in Indiana,
there's many more that are coming along the way.
Another example of a real working food production system is Gotham Greens.
It's a rooftop greenhouse in Brooklyn, New York.
And you could see it here in the yellow box on top of the building.
And you see New York City, Manhattan in the background producing leafy greens and
lettuce and basil, and it's been in business now for about six or seven years.
They've expanded, they grow in these greenhouses at Gotham Greens.
Their market is 10 million people,
almost essentially just downstairs of the building.
Another application of a food production system in real life
is this food growth chamber at the South Pole.
Fresh vegetables, 70 different species have been grown in this facility.
Producing about 48 pounds per week in a 240 square foot area.
This is the high pressure sodium lamps.
And it's using a recirculating hydroponic system to produce fresh vegetables,
bright light, and humid conditions for people living and
working in the stressful conditions, the extreme conditions of the South Pole.
This is physically located in the research
center at the Amundsen-Scott Station at the South Pole.
It's been demonstrated that psychological benefits of being able to have
a fresh salad and in working in this lighted, high humidity, good fragrance
area really helps people who are in the extreme conditions of black and
white, the darkness of night, the white of the snow.
Here we have color and we see how our plants are beneficial for our health.
The example that we've gone over, Lunar Greenhouse.
Another real working food production system, designed for
NASA to be lightweight, collapsible,
to produce the maximum amount of edible biomass to provide the vitamins and
the fiber and nutrition that's needed when you leave the planet.
Ultimately we're looking to have this more sustainable because we have limited
resources of water, of energy and nutrients on other planets.
And I bring this point right here, if we can learn to grow in the extreme resource
limited conditions of another planet, like the moon or Mars, then we can take that
information today and put it into our food production systems in greenhouses.
And be more effective, and
more sustainable in growing our vegetable crops.
Critical, I think, for
the future of the increased population that we have to deal with here on Earth.
And critical to have more students coming through controlled
environment agriculture programs like ours at the University of Arizona.
This class is a hands-on laboratory,
part of several of our courses that utilize this greenhouse to give students
not only the knowledge in the lecture room, but also hands-on experiences.
Whether they are plant people, horticulturalists, engineers, or
psychologists who take our course.
We love to have them here and we know we will need them in the future to help feed
us as we move on with limited resources and increased population.
More information is available about the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center
on our website.
And more information is available about your speaker and other
parts of projects that he's been working on, and will be working on in the future.
I want to thank you for this opportunity, and I look forward to possibly
entertaining you for a tour at our greenhouses and
maybe even entering our academic programs.
Thank you very much.
[MUSIC]
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