CFAES is building a greenhouse of the future, one that can grow high-value food crops such as lettuce and tomatoes as well as alternative crops such as flowers and hemp. The new Controlled Environment Food Production Research Complex, slated for Waterman in Columbus, will serve two forward-looking goals: 1) It will help CFAES faculty support a young, fast-growing, food-related industry. 2) It will train CFAES students for careers in that industry.
Controlled environment agriculture is booming in Ohio. It’s a technology-based way to grow plants sustainably indoors, such as in greenhouses. Commercial facilities can span acres and often use hydroponic methods.
The cutting-edge CFAES facility will allow the latest commercial practices to be replicated, said Dan Gillespie, a graduate student working with Chieri Kubota, CFAES professor of controlled environment agriculture. The result, Gillespie said, will be that CFAES faculty can provide growers with “directly applicable results … to directly drive and impact the controlled environment agriculture industry.”