Ricardo Hernandez

The capacity of strawberry nurseries to develop clean plant material in a timely manner is crucial to the $2.6 billion US strawberry production industry. However, strawberry propagation in North America is a costly multi-year and multi-location operation, leading to a multitude of challenges: (a) Dependency on methyl bromide (MB) for soil disinfestation; (b) Plants as symptomless carriers of plant pathogens; (c) Significant inefficiencies, leading to higher costs for duplicative infrastructure, equipment, labor costs and transportation. There is a critical need for the strawberry nursery industry to reduce overall costs, minimize the spread of pathogens and find alternatives to MB. We propose to address these needs through a coordinated and systematic approach in close collaboration with national and international stakeholders. We have the long-term goal to accelerate the development of optimized, clean propagation techniques, using precise indoor propagation (PIP) practices and genetic tools. Our specific objectives are (1) Development of PIP protocols to optimize strawberry propagation; (2) Determine plant propagation capacity using genetic and morphological tools; (3) Determine socio-economic structure and supply chain of the US strawberry industry; (4) Develop fully functional PIP system and transfer technology into on-farm solutions. We propose to develop nursery specific services, products and on-farm technology, and we will extend our research through a multitude of activities, including yield prediction tools for strawberry farmers in the US. The main outcome of this project is the development of cost-effective strawberry propagation systems, leading to reduced use of MB and the mitigation of diseases and pathogen spread.

Cannabis production continues to be an emerging market in the USA with an annual revenue of $11.6 billion for both medical and recreational sectors. However, since this crop is relatively new in the US market, less information is available on optimizing the light intensity and spectra for optimal growth and economic viability. Cannabis production is divided on several stages including rooting of cuttings, vegetative stage, and flowering stage. In addition, Cannabis plant market is segmented on two main industries: 1) Nursery industry: propagation of mother plants (vegetative crop stage) to produce clones (unrooted cuttings) and transplants (rooted cuttings) that serve as an up-stream provider to the production industry. 2) Production industry: production of Cannabis plants through the vegetative and flowering stages with the goal to produce flower biomass and consequently phytochemical production. The current proposed project will focus on the optimization of light intensity and spectra under supplemental lighting conditions in the greenhouse to increase Cannabis plant branching, flower yield, morphology, and phytochemical content and results will benefit both the nursery (mother plant) and production (flower yield and quality) industries.

CEA - Consortium

the NCSU-CEA-Coalition (https://units.cals.ncsu.edu/cea) is an industry��member-supported research program within NC State���s��Plant Science Initiative. The Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Coalition is a multidisciplinary, controlled environment research group based out of North Carolina State University. Composed of research scientists, engineers and in close partnership with industry, the CEA Coalition aims to develop controlled environment agriculture (CEA) as an economically and environmentally sustainable option for agricultural practices by performing evidence-based, transformative research. NCSU-CEA-Coalition��has unique expertise across colleges including engineering, horticulture, plant physiology, economics, marketing, etc. There are several ways to engage with the coalition including via the Consortium (membership based); one-on-one research projects; and service agreements The Consortium provides an opportunity to leverage research dollars as your��membership��fee is matched by��membership��fees from multiple companies. Consortium research projects are suggested by consortium��members��and will be in the pre-competitive space. Any intellectual property generated from the consortium is available to��members��in good standing for non-exclusive license.����NCSU-CEA consortium Bylaws and��Membership��agreement can be found on our attached to this email. Neither document is negotiable, as we must keep a single set of guiding principles that applies to all our members.

Soybean Research Objective: Increase plant compactness and decrease growing cycle (seed to seed) Proposed research: Photoperiod and Spectral light environment optimization for three maturity groups of soybeans. Rationale 1 (spectrum): The light spectrum is known to have a significant impact on plant morphology, with LED technology it is possible to optimize the spectrum to achieve the desired plant architecture. The expected outcome is to provide a spectrum that creates a more compact plant while maintaining or decreasing growing cycle. Rationale 2 (Photoperiod): Investigate the impact of different photoperiods (before reproductive stage) and same cumulative light (daily light integral) on reducing growing cycle