CLOSED SYSTEMS WITH ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING FOR PRODUCTION OF HIGH QUALITY TRANSPLANTS USING MINIMUM RESOURCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION

The production system for the 21st Century should be designed to produce high quality products with minimum use of resources and environmental pollution (or minimum production of waste). In order to minimize the environmental pollution, the production system must be closed or isolated from its environment.
If the amount of waste can be significantly reduced, the amount of resources supplied to the production system should also be reduced.
The closed or closed-type transplant production system is defined in this article as a transplant production system covered with opaque walls with minimized or controlled ventilation rates, using artificial lighting.
Our recent research has shown that the closed transplant production system requires considerably small amounts of electricity for lighting and air conditioning, water, fertilizer and CO₂ and required no pesticide to produce value-added transplants, as scheduled, with minimum release of environmental pollutants and minimum loss of transplants.
With this system, photoperiod, light intensity and quality, air temperature, humidity, CO₂ concentration and air current speed can be controlled as desired.
The closed transplant production system using artificial light is cost- and resource-competitive against the open-type transplant production systems using natural light, such as greenhouses and nurseries, and can be widely used for solving the global food, resource and pollution problems.

International Symposium on Design and Environmental Control of Tropical and Subtropical Greenhouses

T. Kozai, C. Chun

artificial light, closed system, plant factory, sweetpotato, transplant production

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2002.578.2