The recent increased market demand for locally grown produce is generating interest in the application of techniques developed for controlled environment agriculture (CEA) to urban agriculture (UA). Controlled environments have great potential to revolutionize urban food systems, as they offer unique opportunities for year-round production, optimizing resource-use efficiency, and for helping to overcome significant challenges associated with the high costs of production in urban settings. For urban growers to benefit from CEA, results from studies evaluating the application of controlled environments for commercial food production should be considered. This review includes a discussion of current and potential applications of CEA for UA, references discussing appropriate methods for selecting and controlling the physical plant production environment, resource management strategies, considerations to improve economic viability, opportunities to address food safety concerns, and the potential social benefits from applying CEA techniques to UA. Author’s viewpoints about the future of CEA for urban food production are presented at the end of this review.
As climate change and agriculture burden water resources globally, there is a need for more efficient water use including irrigation with recycled water in greenhouses. While research has proven that properly treated recycled water can be safe for use, many growers still express concern. Underlying most studies on growers' perceptions is the assumption that they understand recycled water the same way scholars and policy makers do—as municipally treated wastewater. We question this assumption and explore whether the ways in which growers conceptualize recycled water is associated with the ways they perceive its usability. Our findings reveal that growers define recycled water in four different ways—captured water, treated water, recirculation and in a general sense as ‘reuse’. These definitions do appear to suggest trends in the way recycled water is perceived by growers. While these definitions do not significantly affect growers' willingness to use, other factors such as prior experience using recycled water appear to be significant.
Seed treatment with a 2,4-diacetylphloroglucinol (DAPG)-producing Pseudomonas strain ameliorated abiotic stress disorder in corn caused by growth in a low-pH soil. In two consecutive growing seasons, Wood1R-treated seed gave rise to plants that grew taller (P
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