Advanced Candidate Crop Analysis Capabilities at the University of Guelph's Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility
Abstract
Understanding how candidate crops respond to the variety of interacting and variable environmental parameters that govern growth and development is critical for optimizing life-support services; it is also critical to ensuring resiliency in the face of inevitable perturbations within the overall life-support system. The Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility at the University of Guelph (Guelph, Ontario, Canada) is home to an extensive suite of whole plant and canopy-scale controlled environment chambers designed to evaluate variable light intensity and spectra (including ultraviolet and far red), atmospheric pressures, atmospheric gas compositions, vapour pressure deficits, carbon dioxide concentrations, and temperature profiles, etc. The net whole plant effect (e.g., net carbon exchange rate) of interactions between these variables, or isolated responses to single environmental parameters, are measured in real time. The range of capabilities will be discussed as they pertain to crop performance in bioregenerative life-support scenarios.
- Publication:
-
42nd COSPAR Scientific Assembly
- Pub Date:
- July 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018cosp...42E1276G