During the spring plowing season, Shanghai Chongming is conducting a special "spring plowing".
On February 13, with the "CyberFarmer" team (CyberFarmer) team, Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences team, Lettus Grow team (Lettus Grow), Shanghai Jiaotong University "Endless Life" team "unlocked" the competition The container gate, Bright Duoduo Vertical Agriculture Challenge and the final competition of the third "Duoduo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition" kicked off.
In the next 90 days, each team will operate their own container to complete the planting of three crops of "Cuitian" lettuce.
This is a new variety of lettuce with a sweet and crunchy taste.
According to the competition system, the team with high output, good quality, excellent algorithm and low energy consumption will win the final victory.
▲Xia Minglin, Deputy Director of Shanghai Agriculture and Rural Affairs Commission (second from left), Zhao Zhihui, Vice President of Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences (fourth from left), Shao Liming, Chief Economist of Bright Food Group (first from right), and Dai Zhihui, Vice President of Pinduoduo (third from right) Keys to the container are awarded to the four participating teams.
"These four teams have advanced technology and rich experience in engineering, algorithms, cultivation, etc. Two are from Beijing and two are from Shanghai. Both Beijing and Shanghai are China's technological highlands. How to better integrate technology, talents, and policies It is our common major proposition to effectively solve the resource bottleneck.” Xia Minglin, deputy director of the Shanghai Agriculture and Rural Committee, the competition guidance unit, said at the opening ceremony that day.
"Vertical agriculture is a combination of multidisciplinary applications and highly intensive technology. It is the combination of industry and agriculture, and the intersection of nature and technology." Zhu Weiqi, executive director and general manager of Guangming Home Port, one of the organizers of this competition, said, "I hope all The team comprehensively uses basic research such as artificial intelligence, crop science, protected horticulture, and plant biotechnology to explore and solve the pain points and difficulties of three-dimensional planting technology."
As the initiator of the "Duoduo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition", Pinduoduo takes agriculture as its core strategy and has long been committed to using new models and technologies to promote the development of agricultural digitalization.
"From the field to the greenhouse, we have achieved partial control of the environment, and vertical farming in a closed environment can achieve a continuous food supply independent of the outside world. This time we invite the brightest brains to discuss 'How urban agriculture grows with fewer resources. Write your own plan on the proposition of more food." said Dai Zhihui, vice president of Pinduoduo.
Workers and Peasants Join Forces to Join the Battle
"Lettuce grows fast and is unstoppable", "endless life, advancing with the day"... At the start of the competition, four teams and more than 20 young players from Beijing and Shanghai appeared one by one and shouted their respective slogans for the competition.
Since its launch in August last year, the Bright Duoduo Vertical Farming Challenge has attracted 30 top teams and more than 150 young scientists from around the world to sign up.
After the preliminary screening, 15 teams entered the preliminary round.
After competition, four high-level teams advanced to the final.
"From these young scientists, I feel the youthful vigor of the new farmers, the courage to face difficulties, the motivation to start a business, the ability to strive for success, and feel their love for agriculture." On the day of the competition, the judges of the competition , Zhu Weimin, director of the Horticulture Institute of Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, was quite infected.
This time, in front of this group of "high-skilled farmers" is the "high-end bureau" of facility agriculture.
The planting scene has been upgraded from the Yunnan plateau greenhouse in the previous two Duoduo Agricultural Research Competitions to a container with pure artificial light and three-dimensional planting.
▲The picture shows the container vertical farm and internal supporting facilities used in this competition.
"This planter box is cooler than I imagined." On February 13, the team members who pushed the door and entered were pleasantly surprised.
The planting box used for this competition was developed by Zhongke Sanan. It is equipped with four-way spectrum dimming lights and environmental control system dedicated to scientific research, which supports different types of spectrum matching and the refinement of "temperature, light, water, air, and fertilizer". control.
Competitors can manage the planting boxes unmanned through mobile terminals.
According to the competition system, the control ports of these environmental elements will be open to contestants.
Ultimately, all energy consumption will turn into numbers on water and electricity meters.
Together with crop yield and quality, they will become important evaluation indicators for judges to score.
As a new type of facility agriculture, container vertical farms can achieve full control over environmental elements.
It is difficult to depend on the sky, and "no sky is reliable" is another kind of difficulty.
How to precisely control the container, which involves engineering, agronomy and other disciplines, tests the "cross-border" ability of the contestants.
"In the future, facility agriculture should be an interdisciplinary and cross-field complex, requiring a large number of sensors and big data algorithms to support it, and change the current situation that agriculture is based on experience-based farming." Xu Dan, the team leader of "Lettuce Grows Fast", said.
Wang Jinhua, the judge of the competition and Director of Agriculture of Guangming Homeport, believes that agriculture is a complex subject, spanning botany, biology, mechanical engineering, computer and other majors.
"The competition tests the breadth and depth of the team's knowledge reserve and the ability of members from different backgrounds to communicate efficiently and be flexible."
At present, the four participating teams generally gather multiple "work types" such as agronomists, data scientists, and plant engineering scientists.
Among them, the Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences team and the "Lettuce Quickly Growing" team have a higher "agricultural rate"; the Shanghai Jiaotong University "Endless Life" team and the "Cyber Farmer" team have a higher "worker rate".
Their "industrial and agricultural integration ability" determines the planting results to a considerable extent.
"The ever-changing technology has brought unprecedented challenges and opportunities to agricultural development." Shao Liming, Chief Economist of Bright Food Group, hoped, "The participating teams actively explored the solutions to the key common problems in the development of the vertical agriculture industry, and promoted the rapid development of smart agriculture. .”
Launch a challenge to "10 degrees of electricity per kilogram of lettuce"
Vegetables grown in containers are protected from wind and rain. Although a continuous food supply can be achieved, the high cost is a problem for the industry.
For example, ordinary lettuce costs about 4-8 yuan per kilogram, while high-level plant factories need to consume 10 kilowatt-hours of electricity to produce 1 kilogram of lettuce, and the product cost may reach more than 20 yuan.
Prices prevent these quality vegetables from reaching the public table.
▲The final was held at the Vertical Agriculture Research Center of Bright Home Port in Chongming, Shanghai.
"We will regard the container as a building, and apply the experience in building energy control accumulated in the past to the container vertical farm." Bao Hua, the team leader of "Endless Life" and doctoral supervisor of Shanghai Jiaotong University, said that they hope to break the barriers of disciplines and use a new To solve agricultural problems from a perspective.
Bao Hua is good at studying heat transport and energy conversion at the micro-nano scale, and is a "master of energy consumption".
In recent years, he has applied his expertise to agricultural scenarios. He has cooperated with the School of Agriculture and Biology of Shanghai Jiaotong University to successfully grow vegetables under the conditions of no soil, no fresh water, and no power supply. A solution.
He Lizhong, team leader of the Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, who has also overcome the problem of growing vegetables in extreme environments, is also full of confidence in this challenge.
Previously, in order to solve the problem of eating vegetables for the scientific expedition team members, the Antarctic Great Wall Station and Zhongshan Station successively built vegetable growing greenhouses.
The Chongming base of the National Facilities Agricultural Engineering Technology Research Center was selected as the "model field" of Antarctic greenhouses.
In this greenhouse simulating Antarctic conditions, He Lizhong and other experts first explored vegetable growing techniques and experience, and then passed them on to the scientific expedition team members, and finally helped them realize "vegetable freedom" in the ice and snow.
"Fully enclosed vertical farming is an important part of Shanghai's agricultural modernization and the construction of a global excellent city." He Lizhong said, "How to realize the efficient production of plant factories and the full utilization of resources is a hot spot in the industry and our research focus."
"Facility agriculture has to be our 'professional counterpart'." The "Cyber Farmers" team led by Zheng Jianfeng, an agricultural scientist born in the 1990s, is from the Key Laboratory of Facilities Agriculture Engineering of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China Agricultural University. The winner of the AI group in the Science and Technology Contest.
During the preparation period, they once cultivated a kind of lettuce similar to "Cuitian" in the container vertical farm designed by themselves.
Currently, they are preparing to optimize intelligent environmental control technology and digital precision planting to improve production efficiency.
"How to reduce energy consumption and improve energy utilization efficiency through dynamic density strategies is very critical." The "Lettuce Fast" team is another "master of the king", not only won the second "Duoduo Agricultural Research Science and Technology Competition" champion , Polestar Agriculture founded by team leader Xu Dan also supplied lettuce for the Beijing Winter Olympics.
In his view, lettuce cultivation in digital agriculture should rely on "human-machine hybrid intelligence".
"As the highest-level controller of the greenhouse, people should combine their own experience and the suggestions given by the twin model to make optimal decisions." For example, according to the growth of plants monitored by sensors, the "seat" of plants can be continuously adjusted, and different densities can be adjusted. Different light intensities and light formulas are given to different areas to maximize the use of space and light energy.
"In this competition, the contestants will launch the strongest challenge to the industry's higher level of 1 kg of lettuce with 10 kilowatt-hours of electricity. We will wait and see to what extent they can reduce energy consumption." Wang Jinhua said.