What else can I rely on for growing vegetables?, Agricultural Experiment of a Group of Young People: Lettuce without Heaven or Earth | Physical Strength | Agriculture
More than 50 years ago, tens of thousands of people, with their strong physical strength and perseverance, reclaimed land in the mudflat wasteland of Chongming Island to solve the problem of eating food and vegetables for the people of Shanghai. Time flies, and on the same land, a new round of "speed and passion" about agriculture is taking place. A group of young people used nearly 50 cubic meters of containers as a testing ground to compete in efficiency and operation in the first fully artificial light plant factory planting competition in China, using "new agricultural tools" and "new agricultural inputs" such as computers, big data, and AI control.
How to get rid of relying on nature for food, how to improve the marketization rate of crops... Although a competition has come to an end, the communication and collision of the new generation of farmers will continue. They are trying to answer the question of the future of China's agricultural modernization.
"union of workers and peasants"
Zhang Yingyu, a "post-95s" girl from Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, never imagined that one day she would research vegetable cultivation when applying for horticulture as a bachelor's degree.
Originally, her career plan was very simple. After graduation, one can go to a botanical garden or landscape design company and interact with flowers and plants every day. A trip to the Netherlands as an exchange student completely changed the previous idea.
Zhang Yingyu still remembers the vibration of entering a modern glass greenhouse for the first time. "In the traditional impression, agriculture is' facing the yellow earth and facing the sky '. However, Dutch greenhouses are like modern chemical factories, with only one or two managers needed to monitor the greenhouse environment in real-time through a control screen in thousands of square meters of space. Hardware design is also full of details, which is the result of generations of improvements. This opened up a broad perspective for her in agriculture. Afterwards, Zhang Yingyu continued to pursue a master's degree in plant science and also took multiple additional courses, including machine learning, ecological modeling, visual recognition, remote sensing technology, and so on.".
"Union of Industry and Agriculture" is a development trend of agricultural modernization and a high-frequency term in this year's Guangming Duoduo Vertical Agriculture Challenge. Its meaning lies in using technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, artificial intelligence, and robots as support to regulate and improve the biological growth environment, making agricultural yield and quality more stable and controllable.
The all artificial light plant factory selected in the competition is an excellent testing ground for testing the understanding of plant spleen. Key indicators such as temperature, lighting, air, fertilizer, etc. are all customized by individuals, and vegetable growers do not need to be present on-site. Through electronic sensors, visual recognition and other technologies, they can "meet" plants online and build algorithm models to assist in planting strategies, achieving dialogue with plants.
Cuitian lettuce growing in the container.
"We give what plants need." The "Cyber Farmers" team from China Agricultural University has been engaged in research on facility horticultural environmental engineering for a long time and has participated in the competition for the third time this year. Previously, the dynamic adjustment technology of their accumulated nutrient solution formula was written into a popular science paper, and all data has been embedded into the model to form a standard algorithm, which has been applied in the Xiaotangshan base in Beijing.
Young people who come from agricultural studies, although their opportunities to enter the industry vary, all have a consistent vision - to break stereotypes and make agriculture "fresh". "Many people have a misconception that agriculture is primitive and AI is sophisticated, and they may not connect the two together. However, in fact, AI is simply a mathematical problem that applies some simple principles to agricultural production, both of which are very close to our daily lives."
And engineering professionals, who were once completely unfamiliar with agriculture, gradually appreciate the joy of interdisciplinary thinking collision while carefully observing plant growth day and night. Jiao Long, a second year graduate student majoring in Energy and Power at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, is a member of the "Life Continuously" team. He has previously participated in research on energy-saving planting platforms in extreme environments such as offshore operations. Together with his team members, he developed a seawater desalination system and combined hydroponic technology to build an automated planting platform, achieving the goal of "fresh vegetables can also be eaten at sea".
In engineering projects, research objects often have one or several optimal solutions. Over the past year, Jiao Long's biggest feeling is that perhaps agriculture does not have a single optimal solution. For example, the development of a seawater desalination still is aimed at maximizing its water production rate, with a clear goal. However, in lettuce cultivation, whether to pursue total yield, quality, or yield per unit energy consumption, the balance of these factors will lead to very different planting strategies. In his opinion, "This is also an interesting part of agriculture."
The four containerized plant factories in this competition will become agricultural research bases jointly built by Pinduoduo and Guangming Mother Port, continuing to be used for research and exploration of vertical agriculture.
Variables of plant growth
Plants usually appear quiet, but their feedback to the external world is actually much livelier than imagined. The "Cuitian" variety selected for the competition, due to its delicate characteristics, pushes the variables to the extreme. The subtle differences in planting strategies greatly affect the performance of the finished product.
"The biggest highlight of the finals is the contest between the agronomy team and the engineering team." He Dongxian, a professor at China Agricultural University, believes that the difference between the two is that agricultural scholars are used to starting with the needs and laws of crop cultivation and combining traditional planting experience with artificial intelligence to obtain better planting results. Engineering experts take lettuce planting as an application scenario and use cutting-edge technology to solve practical problems in agricultural production.
The Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences team, which ultimately won the championship, won by combining traditional experience with cutting-edge technology. The team has developed a smart planting decision management system that integrates algorithms such as plant growth models, light interception models, and transpiration models. It collects real-time data from various sensors and, based on the real-time simulation and prediction results of the model, combines agricultural experience to make timely decision judgments. "Experience is the nourishment of AI learning, which determines the accuracy of the data used to support the model. Conversely, the continuous evolution of the model can predict the growth trend of plants," explained team member Qian Tingting.
The picture shows "Cuitian" lettuce being tried by the public review.
In the end, the production efficiency of the last batch of lettuce by the Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences team reached 0.18 kilograms per square meter per day, which is approximately 5.4 times that of traditional production. According to the calculations of the members, if the number of planting racks is increased and the space utilization efficiency is improved, the production efficiency may reach the international advanced level of 0.4 kilograms per square meter per day.
From the perspective of the path, experts and scholars regard plant demand as the landing point for planting. However, when it comes to commercialization indicators such as yield, taste, and energy consumption, there is no unified answer like solving equations. As Jiao Long felt, the focus of each team led to completely different planting strategies, techniques, and achievements.
When conditions such as temperature, light, water, air, and fertilizer are suitable, lettuce will grow quickly. However, the paradox is that growing too fast can easily cause heartburn and affect quality. Regarding yield and quality, members of the "Cyber Farmers" team have been conflicted, and in the final batch, they still choose to sacrifice some of the yield to improve appearance indicators such as neatness, sensory perception, and product rate.
The performance of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University team in energy consumption has won the attention of other teams. The members carried out hardware modifications to the containers within the allowed range of rules and constructed an environmental control system to reduce energy consumption. The data shows that the daily energy consumption of the team's third round of planting was saved by about 17% compared to the first round. And, the premise for this value is that the external temperature in the third round should be higher than the first round by more than 9 ℃.
The final will be held at the Guangming Mother Harbor Vertical Agricultural Research Center in Chongming, Shanghai.
The Last Kilometer
The competition has come to an end, and this group of young people will also return to the school and research institute to continue their studies and projects. But another question that needs to be answered in this competition is, how can agricultural research and development connect the "last mile" from scientific research to industry?
In the view of Zhu Weimin, the director of the Horticulture Institute of the Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, plant factories are a key direction for Shanghai's promotion, and there is great potential to promote plant factories in urban spaces. "We demand space from the city, where public areas, supermarkets, and households can all become effective plant factories. Those engaged in agriculture, informatization, and energy can gather together to find ways to grow more and more delicious vegetables. Only in this way can agriculture truly modernize."
By manually adjusting temperature, light, water, and fertilizer, 10 or even 11 crops of lettuce can be cultivated in a container per year, demonstrating the advantages of plant factories in breeding. By shortening the breeding cycle, plant factories act as breeding "accelerators", helping researchers develop more scientific research results within a limited time and providing technical support for the modern breeding industry.
The participating team, the "Lettuce Fast Growth" team, has paid special attention to the issue of "production and sales coordination", hoping to make breakthroughs and innovations in the pattern of agricultural production and circulation. They combined visual recognition models with plant growth models to design a lettuce weight prediction algorithm. Based on the predicted values, growers can arrange harvesting workers in advance, contact purchasers, and customize production according to demand, providing reverse guidance for the planting plan at the production end. "In the future, consumers can know the specific launch time of this batch of vegetables, and the quality, cost, and quality are all controllable." The team summarized this as "transforming more domestic agricultural products from spot to futures.".
Usually, in about 35 days, a lettuce can grow and mature from a seedling.
"the Guangming Duoduo Agricultural Challenge has come to a successful conclusion, but there is a bigger road far from over, that is, the 'overtaking road' for the development of agricultural technology '." Zhu Weiqi, executive director and general manager of Guangming Home Port Seed Industry Technology Co., Ltd., said that a competition is not to compete, win or lose, attract eyeballs, and earn traffic, but to meet friends and promote development by competition. "Innovation is always on the way".
Applying technical solutions to vast fields, combining the intelligence and talents of young scientists with the needs of the times, and helping farmers increase income and rural revitalization, is the essence of a competition. Wang Jian, Secretary of the Party Committee and Senior Vice President of Pinduoduo, said, "This competition has shown us the direction and path of the transformation from sweat agriculture to smart agriculture. We will continue to hold innovation competitions, encourage everyone to write papers on the land, and leave the results in the homes of farmers."
