Light Pulsing in Vertical Farming For Sustainable Fresh Produce: LightPuls-VF

Prime Minister Sunak recently identified that the UK food and drink and horticultural sectors are worth £24Bn and £5Bn, respectively, but are under significant pressure to innovate and increase productivity. Vertical farming (VF) is a simple process of crops in developmentally optimised conditions (environments) for growth including light (intensity and composition), nutrients, water, temperature, and humidity.

Replicated in 3-D to maximise production/m2, this allows for crops to be grown anywhere. This is timely given the issues of climate change (and associated extremes) and geopolitical instability both impacting heavily on food security/supply chains. Notably, in the UK we have a £6Bn import deficit in fruit and vegetables (F&V) which dwarfs UK (home) F&V production, valued at £2.6Bn (DEFRA 2021), within which, for VF-appropriate crops, UK production value is £1.7Bn (DEFRA 2021).

This means the potential for VF in the UK alone is enormous. This is now being realised with the promulgation of commercial VF-builds globally and importantly in the UK, e.g., Vertegrow and OneFarm, both using systems from the collaborative partner here; Intelligent Growth Solutions Ltd (IGS).

Here we aim to grasp the potential of VF using basil as an exemplar, but valuable (60-75% of EU herb market share and current global market value of $1.5Bn), crop, and to also explore a novel route to both crop development, economic value and a reduction in the energy used (and therefore emissions created) in the crop production system. Here we will explore the opportunities offered by VF-embedded light emitting diode (LED) light pulsing, the manipulation of light duration/frequency at the microsecond level that looks to offers significant opportunities to maintain/improve crop productivity, manipulate metabolism, biochemistry, development, and reduce energy use and associated emissions.

The science in this area is sparse and the preliminary data has demonstrated that light pulsing increases gross components such as fresh/dry weight (biomass) and leaf areas. However, little underpinning science and knowledge exists in terms of the light pulse-plant interaction and associated consequences for plant metabolism, quality impacts or scope for change via diverse germplasm exploitation.

To solve this, we will take a deep-dive scientific approach and, with the collaborative partners, Intelligent Growth Solutions, a leading VF state-of-the-art technology provider, "shine a light" on the light-physiological-molecular-biochemical mechanisms of interplay and impact. To do this we will tease out the impact of genetic diversity in response to light pulsing towards with the ultimate aims (beyond this project) of creating light optimised new crops.

Alongside this mechanistic plant biology work we will deliver a life cycle assessment to identify potential energy (and GHG) reduction benefits.

The work here has many potential outcomes not least of which is the ability to reduce the costs and improve the sustainability of fresh produce production. Success here would see the approach ultimately applied to other VF-amenable crops to validate broad the utility thereby creating impacts in terms of greater opportunities for on-shoring of F&V production, associated reductions in the aforementioned national F&V import deficit and, longer term, an improvement in the UK health indices via readily available, sustainable and nutritious fresh produce.