China has mastered the key technologies of intelligent plant factories.

You can "farm" without soil.

China has mastered the key technologies of intelligent plant factories, and the overall level is at the forefront of the world.

It is generally believed that agricultural production is inseparable from soil. However, that may change in the future. At the National "12th five-year Plan" Science and Technology Innovation Achievement Exhibition held not long ago, an achievement called "Intelligent LED Plant Factory" attracted wide attention. What is new about this technology, which is praised by the industry as subverting "land use and farming methods"? What is the progress of this cultivation technology in our country?

? With the help of plant factories, human beings can even produce crops in space, deserts, Gobi and other areas.

The Institute of Agricultural Environment and Sustainable Development of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (hereinafter referred to as the Institute of Environmental Development of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences) is an important position of plant factories in China. Yang Qichang, a researcher at the institute, said that at present, China has mastered the key technologies of intelligent LED plant factories, and the overall level is at the forefront of the world.

Yang Qichang explained that agricultural production is the process by which plants produce carbohydrates through photosynthesis. Following the scientific principle, the intelligent LED plant factory, according to the demand for nutrition and sunlight of different crops, automatically allocates the environmental and nutritional elements in the "factory" in real time and accurately supplies plants to ensure the healthy growth of plants, so as to achieve all-weather intelligent plant production, and human beings can even carry out crop production in space, desert, Gobi and other non-arable land.

Different from the traditional agricultural production mode, plant factories have the following technical advantages: first, crop production planning is strong, and annual balanced production can be achieved without being affected by the external environment; second, high output per unit area can greatly improve the efficiency of resource utilization; third, mechanization, high degree of automation, low labor intensity, comfortable working environment, and so on.

Although there are many advantages, development still faces bottlenecks.

Seeing the hardships of farmers in farming, Yang Qichang often thought when he was a child: "farming without soil" would be nice! In the 1990s, Yang Qichang was acutely aware that plant factories were the direction of future development. Yang Qichang led the research team to put forward the "light formula" of many plants, and created the LED energy-saving light source and its light environment control technology and equipment based on the light formula, and completed a number of innovative work in the industry.

The method of "light-temperature coupling energy-saving environmental control" was put forward for the first time to create energy-saving environmental control technology and equipment in plant factories, and the method of "light-nutrition regulation and control of vegetable quality" was first put forward. create short-term pre-harvest continuous illumination to improve quality technology and technical equipment; take the lead in putting forward intelligent management and control methods to improve light efficiency, energy efficiency and nutrition quality in plant factories, and create an intelligent management and control system based on the Internet of things.

In 2009, the R & D team of the plant factory of Huanfa Institute of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Beijing Yida facilities Horticulture Technology Co., Ltd. developed the first intelligent plant factory in China. At present, the technical achievements have been extended to more than 20 provinces, autonomous regions and cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shandong and so on.

Although the plant factory has many advantages, it also faces some "bottlenecks" in the actual development process. Yang Qichang said that the core of the popularization and promotion of plant factories is industrial production.At present, the research and development of standardization and modular equipment of plant factories still need to be improved. From the perspective of R & D strength, scientific research institutions, universities and small and medium-sized enterprises are mainly involved in the research.

"it is hoped that large Chinese enterprises will actively participate in it in the future. Only by realizing the standardization and large-scale production of plant factories can they have a position in the international competition." Yang Qichang said. In terms of economic benefits, compared with open fields and greenhouses, due to the higher initial construction cost and higher energy consumption, the unit production cost is still relatively high, which still needs to be further reduced in the future. Jiang Jianke