Innovative soilless crop technique is the subject of research for a group of academics from the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences.
Francisca Iob, Journalist UTalca.- Climate change demonstrates the importance of mass vertical agriculture, an innovative soilless cropping technique, which is developed in a controlled environment, uses 95% less water and significantly increases yield, even achieving 96 units per m2 compared to 6 a.m. 8 units per m2 that traditional systems allow.
In Chile, specifically at the University of Talca, work is done around it. This is the Vertical Horticultural Agriculture project, which is financed by the Innovation Fund for Competitiveness (FIC) of the Maule Regional Government.
A project that brings together a group of academics and students from the Faculties of Agricultural Sciences and Engineering, who advance in research on the subject and at the same time transfer knowledge and learning.
In this context, they developed an international workshop that brought to Maule the professor of Soilless Crops from the University of Almería, Spain, Miguel Urrestarazu, who insists on the importance of this technique, “we need each square meter to be used with maximum efficiency and efficiency so that we can respect other areas that humanity should not touch.
During his visit, he classified the work being carried out by our House of Studies as first-rate. “Talca has always been a point of reference as an international university that has nothing to envy to other public and private universities that exist in Spain, Europe and the rest of the world”, she expressed.
Urrestarazu is a consultant for the FIC project and, as he highlighted, one of the great contributions of this research has to do with the development of innovative technologies.
Made in UTalca
The Horticultural Vertical Agriculture project seeks to develop and implement an automated module that allows “to have a continuous production of safe vegetables, that is, clean and healthy, regardless of seasonality. By the end of 2024, it expects to have finished its final product, a 6-meter-long recycled shipping container, which will have different production systems to take it to different parts of the Region and the country,” explained its director, Gilda Carrasco.
And it is that vertical agriculture is not only vegetable production, but it is also the development of technological products that can be licensed and used locally or internationally. This line of digital agriculture is the one carried out by the UTalca researcher, Fernando Fuentes.
“Traditionally what one finds available in the market has a high cost and the popular group tends to think that the most expensive is always what works best. Through experimentation and thanks to the execution of this project, we can acquire these devices, test them in controlled operating environments, see what their virtues and defects are, and later obtain the best of this conclusion and develop low-cost devices that can serve to small and medium producers who traditionally do not have access to these technologies”, explained Fuentes.
Technique and transferable technologies
The international workshop featured a presentation by Professor Miguel Urrestarazu and the UTalca academics, Gilda Carrasco, Fernando Fuentes and Paula Manríquez, all members of the FIC Maule project “Vertical Horticultural Agriculture” and the project of the National Agency of Research and Development (ANID) “Strengthening of training and research capacities for the development of urban agriculture in a controlled environment through the incorporation of sustainable technologies.”
A training meeting, aimed at the south-central macro-zone of Chile, which brought together close to 100 people, including students, academics and producers from the Metropolitan Region to Araucanía.
“It is a very interesting topic and one that also brings together a lot of people, both students, ex-students and businessmen. How to optimize the cultivation of vertical agriculture, how to find a more sustainable way of doing agriculture, that requires not only technology, but also a lot of research and we are very well positioned as a University there”, highlighted the Dean of Agricultural Sciences, Hermine Vogel.
Once the presentations were over, the attendees were able to visit the project premises. Cristián Eyzaguirre, fruit producer and exporter, traveled from Santiago and appreciated that UTalca shares this experience with producers interested in the present and future of horticulture. “I think this system has everything that the community, the consumers themselves, are asking us for today: that it be sustainable, that we use less water and be closer to consumption centers,” he said.
Tomás Muñoz, Rari’s agricultural engineer, also thanked the meeting. “The information they provided is very relevant to be able to make decisions” and he added, “I think it is very good that this dissemination of scientific knowledge is being addressed, because it is normally for a very specific niche and that is far from the reach of the small farmer” , said.
At the end of the day, the organizers announced that virtual dissemination and transfer workshops will soon be held, which will be informed through the social networks of the FIC project. @agriculturaverticalutalca.
