Let there be light
Photography reference: https://www.studioroosegaarde.net/project/grow
Never thought I would cite from the old testament starting an AgTech post. This beautiful picture caught my attention in last week’s newspaper. GROW is the brainchild of Daan Roosegaarde, an artist who merges art and tech in rural and urban environments. Developed with partners Wageningen University and Rabobank, this stunning project trials its vertical ‘light recipe’ across an enormous field of leek at Lelystad in the Netherlands. Inspired by Sustainable Development Goals, the project team claims that UV light could not only increase crop growth, but also reduce the usage of pesticides in farming.
Specialized LEDs and UV light technologies are commonly used in high-tech greenhouses and are increasingly seen in vertical farms in cities. But is there sufficient evidence to believe that a brief exposure to some wavelengths of UV light can actually reduce pesticides use? And will it be feasible to actually use light-based technologies outside high-tech environments such as four-row strawberry beds or a muddy leek fields?
Professor Jason Wargent, a world leading expert in plant photobiology, who is also BioLumic’s CSO, confirms that GROW’s ambition is supported by scientific research. BioLumic is a New Zealand based company, that increases crop yields by applying ultraviolet light to seeds, seedlings, and plants. Stressing plants by shining UV light in the right quantity, at the right time in their development provokes a response that makes the plants hardier – bigger stems, bigger leaves, and better overall resilience. The company raised $14 million from New Zealand investors and $3.5m from Government funding for science to grow agricultural crops such as lettuce, soybeans, strawberries and tomatoes, as well as medicinal cannabis. Applying Biolumic’s technologies, the company reported soybean plants with a 20 to 30 per cent increase in weight.
Digging further into the photobiology field, we identified several Europe based startup companies that apply UV-C light technology to reduce fungicide use in fruit and vegetables. UVBoosting, a French company, works by stimulating natural plant defence mechanisms using UV-C glazes in French vineyards. The vines thus become hardier and the damage caused by the pathogen is limited.
Saga Robotics, uses UV light to kill off mildew on crops like strawberries and grapes. This Norwegian company developed an autonomous robot that weekly exposes each plant to shortwave UV light to suppress powdery mildew.
Octinion, a Belgian company developed a robot for autonomous mildew control to integrate UV-C technology in current Integrated Pest Management strategies. In collaboration with the “Proefstation voor de groenteteelt” right in my own backyard here in Hoogstraten, they are testing UV robots on strawberry, tomato, cucumber and lettuce.
A couple weeks ago, UbiQD, an advanced materials company, announced the results of their first NASA-funded plant trials, validating the use of quantum dots for optimized crop growth on space missions, demonstrating a 13% biomass improvement for red romaine lettuce. The company is licensing technology developed at leading research institutions, including Los Alamos National Laboratory and MIT. As SpaceAg is probably to futuristic for many of you readers out there, earlier this year, UbiQD also announced their partnership with Solvay, the nearly 160-year-old Belgian company that dominates the $3 billion global market for greenhouse cover. They jointly developed next-generation greenhouse technology called, UbiGro, an innovative layer installed under the greenhouse roof structure to control light quality and enhance the spectrum with changing greenhouse structure, electricity infrastructure or adding extra lighting. This quantum dot light optimization layer (tongue twister it is) glows when illuminated by the sun and adopts fluorescence to create a more optimal light spectrum for crops to consistently generate up to 20% larger harvests for farmers.
The old-fashioned and conservative me still believes that UV technologies alone will not solve food security issues nor will they be a true alternative for native disease resistant traits or fungicide applications. However, reviewing with my team the pile of scientific publications and patents together with the diverse group of ventures and companies that are investing in photobiology applications, I do see “light” at the end of the tunnel.
And for those of you, who love agriculture and enjoy art, please visit this homage to the beauty of agriculture by Daan Roosegaarde at https://www.studioroosegaarde.net/project/grow
Leaving you, “data-based-decision-makers” with one of Daan’s citations : "People won't change because of facts or numbers. But if we can trigger the imagination of a new world, that's the way to activate them.”
References:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/01/light-led-crops-pesticides-sustainable-agriculture/
https://uvboosting.com/our-company/?lang=en
http://www.octinion.com/products/agricultural-robotics/lumion
https://sagarobotics.com/pages/light-treatment
https://www.nsagriculture.com/news/ubiqd-solvay-greenhouse/
