By 2050, it is estimated that there will be nine billion people on Earth. New technologies will be needed to feed the world’s population, and to grow food in outer space. Climate change adds to the pressure of food scarcity. Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) uses technology to enable growers to manipulate a crop’s environment to desired conditions. Greenhouses, aquaculture, hydroponics, and aquaculture are all examples of controlled environment agriculture. The Controlled Environment Agriculture Center (CEAC) within the BE department has the potential, with the support of CALS and UA mechanisms, for developing self-support to expand to meet the demands. See an online booklet of what we do at the CEAC here.
For a full list of CEAC faculty, staff and collaborators, visit CEAC's directory.
Faculty with CEA Research components:
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| Dr. Joel Cuello | Dr. Gene Giacomelli | Dr. Murat Kacira | Dr. Stacy Tollefson |
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Plants will speak to you once you embrace technology and listen to the data. The mission of the Advanced Sensing & Climate Control Lab for Sustainable CEA Systems develops resource use efficient CEA systems with computer vision guided real time crop growth monitoring systems. Harnessing this technology makes for timely identification of crop health and status, to improve resource use efficiency.
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Using drones equipped with sensors and other imaging technologies, BE is collaborating with scientists at Yuma and Maricopa Ag Centers to develop simple and near-real time tools to assist farmers control and manage field crops. Integrating cameras and sensors into drones, we capture spectrums of light invisible to the naked eye and measure crop development with higher precision and sub-millimeter resolution.
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Centered on using plants to sustain a diet for astronauts, the Mar's Lunar Greenhouse employs plants and crop production for food, air revitalization, water recycling, and waste recycling for the crew. Fulfilling the requirements for of space colonization, the M-LGH aims to deliver a sustained human presence in space and aspires to bring practical commerical-ready technology to Earth's CEA forefront.
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The world's largest robotic field scanner is at the University of Arizona's Maricopa Agricultural Center. Mounted on a 30-ton steel gantry and moving along 200-meter steel rails over 1.5 acres of energy sorghum, the high-throughput phenotyping robot senses and continuously images the growth and development of the crop, generating an extremely high-resolution, enormous data stream — about 5 terabytes per day!
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The UAgFarm facility was developed for engineering and science based research to address challenges and help advancing technology and crop production applications with indoor growing under artificial lighting, to provide experiential educational opportunities for students, and to educate and inform growers and public on indoor growing systems.
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Our Vertical Green Box solution, aka the minimally structured, modular and prefabricated Vertical Farm, is specifically designed to usher in the transformative paradigm of the Vertical Farm that is sustainable -- economically, environmentally and socially.
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