Experimental study of a mini and standard soilless cultivation system in controlled environment agriculture

Today the shortage and/or unstable supply of food, the shortage of resources, and the lack of arable land increasingly require the introduction of new technologies in agriculture in order to reduce energy consumption and environmental degradation compared to current plant production systems. Due to the rapid urbanization and industrialization not only the cultivable land is decreasing, but also conventional agricultural practices are causing a wide range of negative impacts on the environment. In this scenario, Urban Agriculture is becoming a leading field in which agricultural innovations and information technologies have introduced promising cultivation techniques. This permits to evolve simple greenhouses to a high-tech Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) systems. However, there are still challenges to overcome for an efficient and viable system improving resources usage and implementing the use of natural energy. Therefore, this work deals with the development and the characterization of a fully closed small-scale soilless cultivation system for lettuce with artificial light in a controlled environment. In addition, the evaluation and the characterization of microclimatic parameters in a large standard hydroponic greenhouse were performed. In this way, it was possible to compare standard large hydroponic systems with the small-scale soilless cultivation system developed in this thesis. Indeed, installing a set of probes and a supervisory system into the two systems, the microclimatic parameters were evaluated for both systems in order to quantify the importance of controlling the parameters during lettuce cultivation. In conclusion, this work demonstrates that this microclimatic environment management of the system provides a quicker and more effective lettuce cultivation. This represents a step towards the development of industrial system for a high-tech Controlled Environment Agriculture.