Project Proposal:

To date, most high-density plant factories with artificial lighting (PFALs) focus primarily on the production of leafy greens and microgreens due to the simplicity of their production cycle and environment requirements. While these crops can be profitable when sold to high end restaurants and grocery stores, they have little to no nutritional value. The NSERC CRD research project will take advantage of a suite of advanced plant analysis chambers at the University of Guelph’s Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility (CESRF) to optimize the growth environment for the production of fresh (snap) bush beans (Phaseolus spp.) in an ‘vertical farming’ production system. Bush beans were selected for this research for their high nutritional value (protein, fiber) and cultural significance to the diet of Ontario's Iroquois tribe as one of the Three Sisters.

Utilizing the infrastructure available at the CESRF, optimal light quality, light intensity, carbon dioxide concentration, temperature, humidity, and nutrient delivery will be determined. Each one of these environment factors can influence plant physiology, morphology, and secondary metabolite production and as such must be properly balanced to achieve optimal production and nutritional composition. Each environment variable must be tested successively on juvenile and mature growth phases to determine the effect on plant size, fruit production, taste, and nutritional content. Once the environmental control settings and horticultural management strategies have been determined they will ultimately be replicated within a high-density vertical farming system similar to Intravisions “GravityFlow”. 

In the future, vertical farming systems equipped with the environment condition recipes determined at the CESRF/UoG could be deployed in remote communities across the Canada as a new high quality food source for the millions of Canadians that suffer from food insecurity.