China has mastered the key technologies of intelligent plant factories
It is now possible to "farm" without soil
China has mastered the key technologies of intelligent plant factories, with the overall level at the international forefront
It is generally believed that agricultural production cannot be separated from soil. However, this situation may change in the future. At the National "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" Science and Technology Innovation Achievement Exhibition held not long ago, a result called the "Intelligent LED Plant Factory" attracted widespread attention. This technology, hailed by the industry as subverting "land use and farming methods," exactly what is new about it? And how is this cultivation technology progressing in China?
????With the help of plant factories, humans can even carry out crop production in space, deserts, the Gobi and other regions
The Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (hereinafter referred to as the CAAS Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture) is an important base for plant factories in China. Yang Qichang, a researcher at the institute, said that China has now mastered the key technologies of intelligent LED plant factories, with the overall level at the international forefront.
Yang Qichang explained that agricultural production is the process by which plants produce carbohydrates through photosynthesis. Following this scientific principle, intelligent LED plant factories, according to the nutritional and sunlight needs of different crops, carry out real-time automatic adjustment of environmental factors and nutritional factors inside the "factory," precisely supplying the plants to ensure healthy plant growth. In this way, it has achieved all-weather intelligent plant production without soil and without sunlight, and humans can even carry out crop production in non-arable land such as space, deserts and the Gobi.
Different from traditional agricultural production methods, plant factories have the following technical advantages: first, crop production is highly planned, and under conditions unaffected by the external environment, year-round balanced production can be achieved; second, the yield per unit area is high, which can greatly improve resource use efficiency; third, the degree of mechanization and automation is high, labor intensity is low, and the working environment is comfortable, among other advantages.
Although there are many advantages, development still faces bottlenecks
Seeing the hardships of farmers working the land, Yang Qichang often thought as a child: how great it would be "to farm without soil"! In the 1990s, Yang Qichang keenly realized that plant factories were the direction of future development. Yang Qichang led his research team in devoted study, was the first to propose multiple plant "light formulas," and created LED energy-saving light sources based on light formulas and their light environment control technical equipment, completing a number of pioneering works in the industry---
For the first time proposed the "light-temperature coupled energy-saving environmental control" method, and created energy-saving environmental control technical equipment for plant factories; took the lead in proposing the "light-nutrient regulation of vegetable quality" method, and created pre-harvest short-term continuous lighting quality improvement processes and technical equipment; took the lead in proposing intelligent control methods for improving light efficiency, energy efficiency and nutritional quality in plant factories, and created an intelligent control system based on the Internet of Things.
In 2009, the plant factory R&D team of the CAAS Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture and Beijing Zhonghuan Yida Facility Horticulture Technology Co., Ltd. developed China's first intelligent plant factory. At present, this technological achievement has been promoted to more than 20 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Shandong.
Although plant factories have many advantages, they also face some "bottlenecks" in the actual development process. Yang Qichang said that the core of popularizing and promoting plant factories is industrial productization. From the current perspective, the R&D of standardized and modular equipment for plant factories still needs improvement. From the perspective of R&D strength, those currently participating in research are mainly scientific research institutes, universities and small and medium-sized enterprises.
"I hope that in the future large Chinese enterprises can actively participate. Only by achieving standardized and large-scale production of plant factories can we have a position in international competition," said Yang Qichang. From the perspective of economic benefits, compared with open-field cultivation and greenhouses, plant factories, due to reasons such as relatively high initial construction costs and high energy consumption, still have relatively high unit production costs overall, and costs will still need to be further reduced in the future. Jiang Jianke