Articles
Controlled environment agriculture trends in Texas: challenges, opportunities, and research approaches
Article number
1391_27
Pages
197 – 204
Language
English
Abstract
Texas is the fastest growing state in the US, with 29.15 million people.
Most of the growth occurs in major cities encompassed by a triangle with vertices in San Antonio-Austin, Dallas, and Houston.
Climate change-driven effects on food production and reduced predicted water availability pose serious environmental threats to the sustainability of food systems.
In addition, an estimated 4.2 million people (14%) live at the poverty level in rural and urban communities in food deserts.
The rapid investments and applications of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) systems (vertical farming, hydroponics, high tunnels) in Texas at various scales and technologies can bring solutions to current problems of increasing population, urbanization, food deserts, climate change, and decreasing arable land and freshwater resources.
CEA can consistently supply local, fresh, safe, and nutritious fruits and vegetables.
Within this context, Texas A&M AgriLife addresses these challenges by integrating fundamental and applied horticultural research and education in CEA with themes centered around resource-use-efficiency, climate-smart food systems, produce quality and quantity, training, and mentoring.
In this presentation, we highlighted case studies conducted from our Vegetable Physiology and CEA Labs addressing the capacity of humic acids to mitigate abiotic stress in spinach, grafting approaches for greenhouse tomatoes in hot and humid climates, LED light quality and humic acids effects on tomato transplant quality, iron nutrition in hydroponically grown leafy greens, root-zone cooling, automation, and a community education hydroponic project.
Most of the growth occurs in major cities encompassed by a triangle with vertices in San Antonio-Austin, Dallas, and Houston.
Climate change-driven effects on food production and reduced predicted water availability pose serious environmental threats to the sustainability of food systems.
In addition, an estimated 4.2 million people (14%) live at the poverty level in rural and urban communities in food deserts.
The rapid investments and applications of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) systems (vertical farming, hydroponics, high tunnels) in Texas at various scales and technologies can bring solutions to current problems of increasing population, urbanization, food deserts, climate change, and decreasing arable land and freshwater resources.
CEA can consistently supply local, fresh, safe, and nutritious fruits and vegetables.
Within this context, Texas A&M AgriLife addresses these challenges by integrating fundamental and applied horticultural research and education in CEA with themes centered around resource-use-efficiency, climate-smart food systems, produce quality and quantity, training, and mentoring.
In this presentation, we highlighted case studies conducted from our Vegetable Physiology and CEA Labs addressing the capacity of humic acids to mitigate abiotic stress in spinach, grafting approaches for greenhouse tomatoes in hot and humid climates, LED light quality and humic acids effects on tomato transplant quality, iron nutrition in hydroponically grown leafy greens, root-zone cooling, automation, and a community education hydroponic project.
Authors
D.I. Leskovar, S. Choi, J.T. Harvey, C. Lee, A. Nagila, G. Niu, J. Masabni, A. Zahid, P.K. Dash
Keywords
CEA, controlled environment horticulture, hydroponics, protected cultivation, vertical farming
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