Plants are extremely sensitive to stimuli from the external environment and based on what they perceive around them they adapt and adjust their growth. This capacity of plants can be exploited to address one of the greatest challenges for sustainable development: producing more food using fewer resources. It is indeed possible to grow crops in urban environments using LED lamps as a sole energy source in an indoor controlled environment, called a vertical farm.
The goal of this research is the optimization of light characteristics in a vertical farm to optimize yield, also considering the impact on light, water and soil use efficiency. Laura Carotti is a finalist of Unibo’s 2023 3-Minute-Thesis Competition. The 3MT is an academic competition that challenges PhD students to describe their research in not more than three minutes in English to a general audience. Developed by The University of Queensland in 2008, the competition celebrates the discoveries made by students and encourages them to communicate the importance of research to a broader community.