Nottingham Trent University has created a new state-of-the-art smart agriculture research centre to help drive smart farming and sustainable food production.
The modular facility at the university’s Brackenhurst Campus houses a fully controlled growth environment, bringing together the latest technologies and innovation in smart farming and plant science. It also features a biochemical analysis suite to understand crop variations at molecular detail.
It says that with the global population increasing, arable land shrinking and a changing climate, innovative technological practices are essential to ensure food security and reduce the environmental impact of agriculture.
The new facilities will allow scientists to harness cutting-edge methods to assess how the industry can best provide nutritious and fast-growing fresh food without the need for favourable weather, fertile soil, high water volumes or running costs.
The facility also incorporates hydroponic and aeroponic growing systems, delivering different recipes of nutrient-rich solutions directly to plant roots which are suspended mid-air.
Artificial intelligence will process environmental and growth data to extract the key features driving individual crop performance and provide a deeper understanding of specific plant and crop requirements.
As well as three large growing spaces and individual environmental chambers for contained experiments, the facility also includes an analysis area for molecular plant science.
