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Societal Impact Statement Cultivation of strawberry plants in urban production systems, whether in green open‐air spaces or under some form of protected horticulture such as vertical farming, has demonstrated to be challenging to new farmers and businesses. Commercial strawberry producers have an advanced understanding of strawberry plant physiology, enabling them to grow the crop successfully and profitably. Lack of knowledge exchange between commercial growers and new urban farmers seems to result in the abandonment of strawberries as crop of choice in urban systems. This review will confront the specific plant science challenges urban growers need to address to incorporate this nutritional crop into their revolutionary urban growing systems, whilst achieving good quality produce with high yields. Summary To ensure a sustainable future of farming, urban horticulture (UH) will need to be a key part of our everyday life. There are increasing demands for higher productivity and more locally produced food, even close to densely populated urban areas, to address environmental pressures and accelerate the resilience of modern food systems. UH is a broad term and can include numerous cultivation methods; rooftop gardens, public spaces, vertical walls, indoor vertical farms, as well as an array of crops including, salads, soft fruits and trees. Crops such as strawberries are expected to soon make a significant contribution to UH. Urban strawberry production promises all‐year round fruit availability, reduced reliance on imports, increased self‐sufficiency, lower food miles, a supply of high‐quality fresh fruits from hyper‐local spaces, increased employment opportunities, welfare benefits and an opportunity to promote a sense of community. Strawberry is a complex perennial crop with agronomical challenges, which requires specialist knowledge that is not always available to new urban farmers. Achieving an urban version of a strawberry field will require knowledge exchange between the commercial rural strawberry producers and the newly entered urban growers. Plant physiology, management of plant pathogens, choice of propagation material, fertigation, pollination and environmental requirements are the most common challenges for urban strawberry production. This review aims to consolidate the common bottleneck challenges of UH for new urban strawberry facilities. Cultivation of strawberry plants in urban production systems, whether in green open‐air spaces or under some form of protected horticulture such as vertical farming, has demonstrated to be challenging to new farmers and businesses. Commercial strawberry producers have an advanced understanding of strawberry plant physiology, enabling them to grow the crop successfully and profitably. Lack of knowledge exchange between commercial growers and new urban farmers seems to result in the abandonment of strawberries as crop of choice in urban systems. This review will confront the specific plant science challenges urban growers need to address to incorporate this nutritional crop into their revolutionary urban growing systems, whilst achieving good quality produce with high yields. El cultivo de plantas de fresa en sistemas de producción urbanos, ya sea en espacios agrícolas al aire libre o mediante alguna forma de horticultura controlada, como la agricultura vertical, ha demostrado ser un desafío para los nuevos agricultores y empresas. Los productores comerciales de fresas tienen un conocimiento detallado de la fisiología de las plantas de fresa, lo que les permite cultivar con éxito y de manera rentable. La falta de intercambio de conocimientos entre los productores comerciales y los nuevos agricultores urbanos, parece tener como resultado el abandono de las fresas como un cultivo preferido en los sistemas urbanos. Esta revisión aborda los desafíos específicos de la ciencia vegetal que los productores urbanos deben enfrentar para incorporar este cultivo nutritivo en sus revolucionarios sistemas de cultivo urbano, y al mismo tiempo lograr productos de buena calidad con altos rendimientos.

Light-emitting diode (LED) technology is paving the way to increase crop production efficiency with electric lamps. Users can select specific wavelengths to elicit targeted photomorphogenic, biochemical, or physiological plants responses. In addition, LEDs can help control the seasonality of flowering plants to accurately schedule uniform flowering based on predetermined market dates. Research has shown that the monochromatic nature of LEDs can help prevent physiological disorders that are common in indoor environments, and help reduce incidence of pest and disease pressure in agriculture, which could ultimately increase crop production efficiency by preventing crop losses. Furthermore, a significant attribute of LED technology is the opportunity to reduce energy costs associated with electric lighting. Studies have shown that by increasing canopy photon capture efficiency and/or precisely controlling light output in response to the environment or to certain physiological parameters, energy efficiency and plant productivity can be optimized with LEDs. Future opportunities with LED lighting include the expansion of the vertical farming industry, applications for space-based plant growth systems, and potential solutions to support off-grid agriculture.

Providing an adequate quantity and quality of food for the escalating human population under changing climatic conditions is currently a great challenge. In outdoor cultures, sunlight provides energy (through photosynthesis) for photosynthetic organisms. They also use light quality to sense and respond to their environment. To increase the production capacity, controlled growing systems using artificial lighting have been taken into consideration. Recent development of light-emitting diode (LED) technologies presents an enormous potential for improving plant growth and making systems more sustainable. This review uses selected examples to show how LED can mimic natural light to ensure the growth and development of photosynthetic organisms, and how changes in intensity and wavelength can manipulate the plant metabolism with the aim to produce functionalized foods.

Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) tipburn is a calcium-related physiological disorder affecting young, enclosed leaves, reducing marketability. Vertical airflow fans (VAFs) effectively control tipburn in greenhouses but are limited by installation complexity, shading, and energy use. A chemical biostimulant can be added to hydroponic nutrient solution to enhance calcium mobility and reduce tipburn, but its efficacy relative to VAFs is unknown. We evaluated three biostimulant concentrations (0, 0.25, and 0.5 mL·L−1) with and without VAFs (≈1 m·s−1) in a split-plot randomized complete block design using greenhouse deep-water-culture hydroponics in summer. Lettuce ‘Rex’ plants were assessed 14, 21, and 28 days after transplant (DAT). Tipburn severity rating (on a scale from 0 = none to 5 = severe) and the percentage of leaves affected increased over time in the control (NoVAFs, no biostimulant), reaching 5.0 and 39%, respectively, at 28 DAT. Application of the calcium-mobilizing biostimulant at 0.5 mL·L−1 reduced tipburn by 94%–96% and 71%–75% at 21 and 28 DAT, respectively, under NoVAFs, comparable to the elimination or minimization of tipburn by VAFs. Shoot fresh and dry mass were transiently reduced by 16%–32% at 14–21 DAT under the highest biostimulant concentration, but by 28 DAT, biomass was comparable to the control across treatments, and minor reductions in tissue moisture content under VAFs explained fresh-mass differences. Inner-leaf calcium concentrations increased with biostimulant application under NoVAFs, correlating inversely with tipburn severity, whereas VAFs promoted calcium delivery independently of the biostimulant. These results demonstrate that the calcium‐mobilizing chemical biostimulant results in comparable tipburn mitigation in hydroponic lettuce to VAFs under summer greenhouse conditions, with no yield penalty at final harvest, and can be used where VAFs are impractical.

To ensure food security, agricultural production systems should innovate in the direction of increasing production while reducing utilized resources. Due to the higher level of automation with respect to traditional agricultural systems, Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) applications generally achieve better yields and quality crops at the expenses of higher energy consumption. In this context, Digital Twin (DT) may constitute a fundamental tool to reach the optimization of the productivity, intended as the ratio between production and resource consumption. For this reason, a DT Architecture for CEA systems is introduced within this work and applied to a case study for its validation. The proposed architecture is potentially able to optimize productivity since it utilizes simulation software that enables the optimization of: (i) Climate control strategies related to the control of the crop microclimate; (ii) treatments related to crop management. Due to the importance of food security in the worldwide landscape, the authors hope that this work may impulse the investigation of strategies for improving the productivity of CEA systems.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1383100.].

Optimizing the light environment for indoor strawberry production is critical for ensuring high productivity and fruit quality. Short-day (SD) strawberries require SD conditions for flower induction. However, short days can also cause semidormancy symptoms that inhibit strawberry plant growth and production. One strategy to address this challenge in SD strawberry production is extending to a long-day (LD) photoperiod to prevent semidormancy. This preliminary study investigated the effect of photoperiod adjustment and light quality modification by analyzing two SD strawberry cultivars, Earliglow and Nyohou, under three photoperiod treatments (SD, LD, or alternating SD/LD) with or without supplemental far-red (FR) treatments (44% FR, 700–800 nm over a total photon flux density of 400–800 nm). Plants under continuous SD conditions exhibited a typical semidormancy-like morphology, with shorter petioles and peduncles. The supplemental FR treatment extended petiole and peduncle length significantly, regardless of daylength. Strawberry total yield, total number of fruit, and percentage of marketable fruit were greater in plants with supplemental FR treatment regardless of cultivar. Supplemental FR light treatment also increased the total soluble solid concentration (TSS, Brix) and the Brix-to-titratable acidity ratio. The increase in productivity and fruit TSS was attributed in part to a high total photon flux density as well as improved plant morphology under supplemental FR light, which enhanced photoassimilate allocation to fruit. The addition of FR light appears to be beneficial in indoor production of SD strawberry cultivars for preventing semidormancy and enhancing yield and fruit quality.

Cold atmospheric plasma applied to water results in a multitude of direct and indirect chemical reactions at the interface, generating a solution referred to as plasma-activated water (PAW), which is rich in reactive nitrogen and oxygen species and has been shown to enhance several processes important to seed germination and seedling production. More specifically, a growing body of research supports the role of PAW in augmenting the seed germination rate and uniformity. Additionally, PAW has been shown to enhance growth and vigor of crop seedlings. In 2023, a survey was launched to ascertain information about the current knowledge of and interest in this technology and, upon discovery, gauge plant producers’ willingness to learn about and adopt PAW in their own operations. Responses from young plant producers were collected between Aug 2023 and Mar 2024 using an anonymous survey. Of the 82 respondents, only 18% were aware of PAW. Despite its obscurity, 78% indicated that they were interested in learning more about PAW and 55% were in favor of trying PAW in their cultural practices. Farmers growing in larger production areas, using indoor vertical farms, or producing herb crops were among the most inclined to learn about and try PAW to enhance their production. Additionally, the frequency with which farmers have experienced poor seed germination positively correlated with overall willingness to try PAW.

Confronted with increasing global food demands, diminishing arable land, and climate volatility, controlled-environment agriculture with advanced red and far-red LED lighting can enhance photosynthesis and optimize plant growth. This investigation reports the generation of a Mn4+/Nd3+ co-doped Y2SiO5 phosphor with a Nd3+ concentration ranging from 0.1 to 2.5 mol% via a solid-state synthesis method, aiming to enhance red and far-red emission for plant cultivation LEDs. For the Y2SiO5:Mn4+ (1 mol%), Nd3+ (2 mol%) phosphor, the phase integrity, nanostructured morphology, elemental mapping, and vibrational characteristics were examined using XRD, Rietveld analysis, FTIR, SEM, and EDX. Nd3+ ions act as near-infrared excitation mediators, ensuring efficient Nd3+ → Mn4+ energy transfer upon 808 nm excitation, and this leads to pronounced red photoluminescence from Mn4+ ions that covers the range of 640–710 nm, exhibiting strong emission peaks centered at 650nm, 663nm, and 685nm, coinciding with the absorption band of phytochromes and chlorophyll. The optimal emission intensity was accomplished for a Nd3+ doping concentration of 2 mol%, beyond which concentration quenching occurred. The material produced a strong, concentrated deep red emission with CIE coordinates near (0.73, 0.27) and a high color purity of 98.96%, making it well-suited for photosynthetic activation. A phosphor-integrated red pc-LED was fabricated, and Tulsi plants were grown under this LED during the winter in Meghalaya, a period critical for plant growth due to the low ambient light. Over a 30-day period, the plants exhibited enhanced height and leaf development, demonstrating the practical potential of Mn4+/Nd3+ co-doped Y2SiO5 for energy-efficient, wavelength-optimized horticultural lighting.

Indoor agriculture is emerging as a promising approach for increasing the efficiency and sustainability of agri-food production processes. It is currently evolving from a small-scale horticultural practice to a large-scale industry as a response to the increasing demand. This led to the appearance of plant factories where agri-food production is automated and continuous and the plant environment is fully controlled. While plant factories improve the productivity and sustainability of the process, they suffer from high energy consumption and the difficulty of providing the ideal environment for plants. As a small step to address these limitations, in this article we propose to use internet of things (IoT) technologies and automatic control algorithms to construct an energy-efficient remote control architecture for grow lights monitoring in indoor farming. The proposed architecture consists of using a master–slave device configuration in which the slave devices are used to control the local light conditions in growth chambers while the master device is used to monitor the plant factory through wireless communication with the slave devices. The devices all together make a 6LoWPAN network in which the RPL protocol is used to manage data transfer. This allows for the precise and centralized control of the growth conditions and the real-time monitoring of plants. The proposed control architecture can be associated with a decision support system to improve yields and quality at low costs. The developed method is evaluated in emulation software (Contiki-NG v4.7),its scalability to the case of large-scale production facilities is tested, and the obtained results are presented and discussed. The proposed approach is promising in dealing with control, cost, and scalability issues and can contribute to making smart indoor agriculture more effective and sustainable.