Producing functional food crops in buildings using microbial hydroponics in combination with light-emitting diode (LEDS)
PTDC/ASP-HOR/29187/2017
Este projecto teve o apoio financeiro do financiamento UIBD/00329/2020 atribuído ao Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes (cE3c) from FCT
Lx Crop is a project aimed at advancing the science of urban food systems and environmental modelling. Its main goal is to develop a microbial hydroponic food system able to produce functional food, helping cities to achieve their agenda goals for food security, and explore new business opportunities associated with emerging sustainable urban agriculture.
Create a building-integrated agriculture (BIA) prototype inside a shipping container by developing and installing an hydroponic production system (nutrient film technique - NFT) optimized to maximize space and energy consumption.
Developing Microbial Hydroponics (MH), combining NFT and root inoculation with plant growth promoting microorganisms (PGPM).
Finding the best match between nutrient solution composition and PGPM, and test and optimize the use of urban wastewater in combination with PGPM, for crop production in MH-BIA.
To develop an alert system able to detect diseases at an early stage of infection, in order to minimize the use of phytosanitary products.
To evaluate the crops obtained in the Lx Crop project by performing qualitative, quantitative, and organoleptic analyses.
To assess the efficiency of BIA in relation to conventional agricultural systems.
