Plant factory: no soil, no sky

This is the first large plant factory in China It has subverted the traditional agricultural production mode of China for thousands of years Plant cultivation will not be limited and influenced by the natural conditions such as land and climate It will change the status quo of "relying on the sky for food" and become the wind vane of large-scale plant factories in China The chief engineer, Zhou Zengcheng, sounds like a "match" here He leads reporters into this mysterious plant factory -- close contact -- comprehensive integration of high and new technology "Plant factory is a system that realizes the annual continuous production of crops through high-precision environmental control in the facility It uses computers to automatically control the temperature, humidity, light, CO2 concentration and nutrient solution of plant growth, so that the plant growth in the facility is not or rarely restricted by natural conditions It is a labor-saving production of modern biotechnology, environmental engineering and mechanical transmission And automation control " "Its concept was first proposed by Japan, and it has been extensively studied and tested in the Netherlands, Japan and other developed countries of facility agriculture The overall technology has reached the stage of maturity and practicality," Zhou said According to the international classification, large-scale plant factories are located over 1000 ㎡ At the end of March 2010, Tongzhou plant factory of Beijing Agricultural Machinery Research Institute, covering an area of 1289 ㎡, was completed Four regions and three modes: This is a closed building that uses precise environmental control technology and automatic high-tech to carry out the annual factory production of plants In the plant factory, the computer in the control room records the environmental data of each growth unit of the plant and provides the plant with "needed" nutrition "Our plant factory is divided into four areas: tissue culture planting area, seedling cultivation (refining) area, production and harvest area and packaging and storage area." Zhou Zhichan introduced "Here, the environmental conditions required for each link of seedling and vegetable growth are controllable - real-time monitoring from light, temperature, humidity to water and carbon dioxide concentration." Zhou said "Our plant factory consists of seedling breeding center and three different models of plant factory production workshops: artificial light utilization type, sunlight utilization type, sunlight and artificial light combination type Equipped with a complete set of automatic equipment for precision seeding and seedling raising, production, harvesting and packaging process, developed a seeding and seedling raising production line, transplanting robot and harvesting robot, so as to produce high-quality seedlings, leafy vegetables and fruit vegetables, playing four functions of scientific research, production, demonstration and incubation " Zhou said What techniques have been used? Hydroponics with nutrient film is the characteristic of plant factory, which makes nutrient solution become "Star" "The adoption of soilless cultivation can not only prevent the spread of diseases and insect pests, but also save arable land The roots of plants do not grow in the soil, but are completely immersed in nutrient solution " Zhou said "The efficiency of disinfection, the detection of nutrient components and the automatic regulation of nutrient solution have always been the hot and difficult points in the study of closed nutrient solution circulation system." "At present, the main methods of nutrient solution sterilization in the world include heat treatment, ultraviolet, sand filtration and ozone, among which heat treatment, ultraviolet and sand filtration are the most effective methods," Zhou said "Our nutrient solution disinfection equipment adopts a multi-stage treatment process The first stage uses sand filtration to remove the residues and plankton in the nutrient solution, so as to improve the transparency of the nutrient solution The second stage uses uv-oh technology for terminal treatment, and uses the interaction of vacuum ultraviolet and short wave ultraviolet two kinds of wavelength high-energy level UV to produce high-level oxide hydroxyl radicals Combined with ozone disinfection, it can Technology to achieve rapid, efficient, broad-spectrum sterilization, purification of organic and inorganic pollutants in nutrient solution " This system mainly studies the dynamic monitoring and control software and hardware system of nutrient solution, and realizes the automatic detection of nutrient solution environmental factors and the automatic supplement of nutrient elements "The nutrient solution membrane hydroponics technology can make the nutrient solution flow from the higher end to the lower end of the planting trough in the form of cutting flow The growth cycle of hydroponic plants is much faster than that of soil cultivation, and plants can grow and harvest in a year " Zhou said Calculate an account, 50-60 days for a common greenhouse leafy vegetables, Tongzhou plant factory can achieve 30-40 days for a crop Tissue culture technology: a small piece of tissue produces a large number of seedlings tissue culture technology is known as a "revolution" in agricultural application The plant factory has a small-scale tissue culture room for research and experiment to study the technology and equipment of light independent plant tissue culture "The tissue culture seedling system is composed of medicine room, inoculation room and culture room Intensive production can be carried out under the condition of manual control, which is not affected by seasons and bad weather in the natural environment It only needs to take out a small piece of tissue or organ on the raw material to produce a large number of seedlings in a short period of time, and the progeny can keep the good characters of the original varieties Tissue culture can be produced in the same way in the factory from taking materials to inoculation, culture to rooting and transplanting, and the air cleanliness can reach 100000 level " Zhou said "The closed factory seedling system adopts the space enclosed by insulated wall panels to control the exchange of material and heat within and outside the system to a minimum The indoor temperature is maintained by the air conditioner, and the lamps provide the light needed for the growth of plants " Zhou said, "the advantage of this is that the system is very closed, which can reduce the number of air changes and the exchange of materials and heat energy inside and outside the system to the minimum; there is no excess nutrient liquid discharged out, which is conducive to environmental protection; artificial light source provides the light needed for plant growth, and we use multi-layer three-dimensional culture frame to improve the space utilization rate and unit area output, Shorten the production cycle " - extend reading innovation point 1: new energy shows its magic power, weekly production increase says frankly, in the process of construction of this plant factory, cost control, sealing of maintenance structure, environmental control, nutrient solution control and automatic harvest are the biggest technical difficulties and also the points that need innovation "The adoption of ground source heat pump system and solar power generation system is a major technological innovation of Tongzhou plant factory." Zhou said Whether it is the early exploration or the final development and expansion, the high cost of plant production and operation has been the fundamental problem that can not be popularized The introduction of new energy and new technology in Tongzhou plant factory is not only for the purpose of taking advantage of low-carbon economy, but also for cost control "From the beginning of the design, we have introduced new energy technologies such as shallow ground source heat pump and photovoltaic power generation to reduce the consumption of high carbon energy such as coal and oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions The 15kw solar energy independent photovoltaic power generation system can convert clean and pollution-free solar energy into electric energy for plant factories Even when the rain and snow or the power supply is abnormal for three consecutive days, it can still maintain the normal operation of the closed seedling room and the artificial light plant production workshop in the core part of the plant factory Since the fill light consumes a lot of energy, we will apply the solar power generation system, and there will be almost no consumption after operation " Zhou said Innovation 2: intelligent control of sensor greenhouse environment it is also known that various sensors and greenhouse environment control systems in foreign countries are expensive, which is also the main reason why they cannot be popularized "We independently developed sensors for plant growth, such as leaf temperature, stem flow rate, stem micro change, fruit growth, etc., developed greenhouse environmental control system based on wired / wireless LAN by using embedded Ethernet chip, inspected and controlled multiple environmental factors in plant factory, monitored plant information dynamically in real time, and applied image processing technology and communication technology far away Distance cultivation management " "Through these sensors, we have obtained real-time data and historical data of environmental conditions inside and outside the greenhouse, established an energy consumption and environmental evaluation model reflecting energy consumption indicators and environmental control results, thus established a predictive environmental control strategy with the minimum energy consumption and appropriate environmental control as the control objectives, and finally realized the intelligent control of greenhouse environment," Zhou said The growth cycle of agricultural products from sowing to harvest is shortened to realize annual production; the environment with precise regulation is suitable for the production of various characteristic vegetables, flowers and crops with high economic value; the mechanical automation and computer information technology are fully adopted to save human and material resources; the plant production area per unit area is more than 3-5 times of the greenhouse with multi-layer cultivation Intelligent control firmly controls the cost - core tips in the past decade, some universities and scientific research institutes in China have carried out research and development in soilless cultivation and plant factories, achieved results in the field of tissue culture seedling technology, nutrient solution regulation technology, artificial light source, and established small-scale plant factories, but the actual production and application in China is almost blank At the end of March 2010, Tongzhou plant factory of Beijing Agricultural Machinery Research Institute, the first large plant factory in China, was completed The plant factory, with an investment of 10 million yuan, was jointly designed and built by Beijing Agricultural Mechanization Research Institute and Beijing Jingpeng Global Technology Co., Ltd and started in 2009 In a limited area, it is the overall technical idea of the plant factory to study and display the new technology and equipment of the international leading-edge plant factory as comprehensively and in-depth as possible.