Elisa Appolloni is a PhD student at the University of Bologna, at the Department of Agri-Food Sciences and Technologies (DISTAL), Italy. Her research interests cover numerous topics in the field of urban agriculture, including soilless cultivation systems, application of artificial LED light for plants cultivation, vertical and indoor farming, building-integrated agriculture, and rooftop agriculture. Under the supervision of Prof. Francesco Orsini, she is focusing her PhD research topic on the effects of supplementary LED light on greenhouse-grown truss-tomato, cultivated with soilless systems. The objectives of her research were to evaluate several aspects related not only to the physiological and vegetative response of the plant, but also to the yield, nutritional value and commercial quality of the product. It also investigated postharvest characteristics and shelf-life. Beside her PhD topic, she is conducting complementary research focused on the application of artificial LED light for indoor cultivation of high valuable plants. In collaboration with her research group, she developed a database compiling the most recent literature on the effects of LED light on the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites in medicinal plants, aromatics, edible flowers and microgreens. The database included the characteristics of each applied light treatment (e.g., intensity, spectrum, photoperiod), dividing them by each plant category and secondary metabolite typology. Based on the results, each light treatment was assigned a 1 to 3 score, to identify the best combination to enhance secondary metabolites according to plant species. The on-line database represents a useful tool for producers to identify the best light combination to increase the secondary metabolites for economically valuable crops.
Elisa Appolloni won the ISHS Young Minds Award for the best poster presentation at the VIII International Conference on Landscape and Urban Horticulture, which was held virtually in Italy in December 2021.
Elisa Appolloni, University of Bologna, Department of Agro-Food Science and Technology (DISTAL), Viale Giuseppe Fanin 44, 40127 Bologna, Italy, e-mail: elisa.appolloni3@unibo.it
The article is available in Chronica Horticulturae