Plant Factory: An Indoor Vertical Farming System for Efficient Quality Food Production - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0128017759 ISBN 13: 9780128017753

Publisher: Academic Press, 2015

Synopsis

Plant Factory: An Indoor Vertical Farming System for Efficient Quality Food Production provides information on a field that is helping to offset the threats that unusual weather and shortages of land and natural resources bring to the food supply.

As alternative options are needed to ensure adequate and efficient production of food, this book represents the only available resource to take a practical approach to the planning, design, and implementation of plant factory (PF) practices to yield food crops. The PF systems described in this book are based on a plant production system with artificial (electric) lights and include case studies providing lessons learned and best practices from both industrial and crop specific programs.

With insights into the economics as well as the science of PF programs, this book is ideal for those in academic as well as industrial settings.

About this title

Review:

"Plant Factory is very useful for a beginner interested to venture into crop production using plant factory system. It provides a comprehensive information from all aspects of crop production under a housing or factory system, inclusive the design of the structure and lighting and their mantainance. I would recommend it to be used as a textbook for horticulture course on vegetables production system where land is limited such as in urban areas. The science or technical know-how is very strong as a lot of research has been conducted to support the claims. It is quite unusual for a book to even provide information on the training centre whereby a trainee can register himself or herself. As it mentioned, this system of vegetables production is rather costly and the economics or cost-benefit analysis should be included as one of the main topic in the book. Also, the risk or probability of failure of the entrepreneur investing in this system to succeed or make money should also be highlighted. Also, it will be quite useful to know the perception of customers or how to convince the customers to pay more for the vegetables produced in the plant factory." -- Prof. Dr. Che Fauziah Ishak, Universiti Putra Malaysia

About the Author:

Oyoki Kozai
Japan Plant Factory Association (NPO)
c/o Center for Environment, Health and Field Sciences,
Chiba University
6-2-1 Kashiwa-no-ha, Japan
Telephone: 81-4-7137 -8114, Fax: 81-4-7137 -8114
Electric mail address: kozai@faculty.chiba-u.jp
Chief Director, Association for Plant Factory Managers
Chief-Director, Japan Plant Factory Association (NPO)
Professor Emeritus of Chiba University
Summary of Academic achievements
Publications: 270 original papers, 140 review papers, 159 miscellaneous papers,
171 book or book chapters, 7 translations of books from English to Japanese
Patents: 20 active patents, 50 approved patents in total
Number of Invited Lectures at International Meetings: 47
Number of Invited Lectures at National Meetings: 85
National and International Awards
2009 Awarded for Lifetime Achievement from The Society for In Vitro Biology
2003 Awarded for outstanding contribution from Japanese Society of High
Technology in Agriculture
2002 Purple Ribbon Award from Prime Minister of Japanese Government
for the academic achievement of environmental studies in biology.
2002 Friendship Award from Chinese Government for the
2003 achievement of outstanding contribution to Chinese horticultural industry
2000 Fellow, Japan Association of International Commission of
Agricultural Engineering
1997 Japan Prize for Agricultural Science for the academic achievement
Growth Regulation and Mass-propagation of in vitro plantlets
by Physical Environment Control” awarded by Japanese Academy
of Agricultural Sciences and by Yomiuri Newspaper Co.
1992 Prize for academic achievement in Environmental Control in
Photoautotrophic Plant Tissue Culture” awarded by Japanese
Society of Environment Control in Biology.
1991 Prize for academic achievement in Fundamental Research on
Environmental Control Methods for Factory-type Transplant
Production” awarded by Japanese Society of High Technology in
Agriculture.
1982 Prize for academic achievement in Solar Light Transmission in
Greenhouses” awarded by the Society of Agricultural Meteorology of
Japan

Texas AgriLife Research at El Paso and Texas A&M University, TX, USA
Genhua Niu
Associate Professor
Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center at El Paso, Texas A&M System
El Paso, 1380 A&M Circle, TX 79927
Phone: 915 859 9111 Ext 232; Fax: 915 859 1078
Email: gniu@ag.tamu.edu; URL: http://elpaso.tamu.edu/Research/Index.htm

Areas of Expertise
Environmental stress physiology
Modeling and crop production under controlled environment
Nutrient and salinity management for efficient use of water and fertilizer
Micropropagation
Dr. Genhua Niu is an off campus faculty at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center at
El Paso with 100% Research Appointment. Her areas of special expertise are in
environmental stress physiology and plant production in controlled environment.
Her current research areas include identifying drought and salt tolerant low water
use plant materials for urban landscape, quantifying growth and physiological
responses of crops to drought, salt and heat stresses, and determining the minimum
water requirement for urban landscape plants for maintaining a healthy landscape
while conserving water. In addition,
Dr. Niu is also working on evaluating the salt and drought tolerance of a range of
bioenergy crops and vegetables for the semi-arid region. As a researcher at an
off campus research center, Dr. Niu closely works with county extension agents
on local extension programs.
She also collaborates with faculty members at the Department of Horticultural Sciences,
other research centers, and colleagues at other universit

About this edition

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0128017759
• ISBN 13: 9780128017753
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432
• Editor: Kozai Toyoki, Niu Genhua, Takagaki Michiko