Tag Archive for: Agriculture

AgriSolar News Roundup: Farm to Table Event at Biosphere 2, UAZ Agrisolar Research, German Agrisolar Pilot Project  

Agrisolar Clearinghouse Hosts Farm to Table Event at Biosphere 2  

The AgriSolar Clearinghouse held an AgriSolar Farm to Table event  at Biosphere 2 in Tucson, Arizona, last week, in partnership with the GreenBiz23 conference. Similar to the AgriSolar Clearinghouse Follow the Sun field trips, the AgriSolar Farm to Table events bring members of the agrisolar community together to see, touch, taste, and celebrate the delicious foods grown and grazed at solar farms around the country.

Members of the Agrisolar Clearinghouse, partners and a few others pose for a photo.

The AgriSolar Clearinghouse, along with sponsor Enel North America and partners from Biosphere 2, Connexus Energy, NREL, InSPIRE, Jack’s Solar Garden, and Columbia University, networked with attendees while they enjoyed lunch and refreshments prepared by Chefs Erin, Mateo, and Janos. The menu highlighted foods grown and grazed under solar arrays, including honey, beans, lamb, salad greens, potatoes, and saffron. Discussions ensued amongst attendees while Enel awarded Bare Honey solar-grown honey and the highly coveted agrivoltaic Lego sets.  

Attendees enjoying a solar-grown lunch with live music.

During the lunch, attendees also enjoyed learning about the Biosphere 2’s agrivoltaic project from Dr. Greg Barren-Gafford and graduate students Kai Lepley, Nesrine Rouini, Alyssa Salazar, and Caleb Ortega. Dr. Barren-Gafford provided a background on Biosphere 2, as well as research conducted at the site and its application to agrivoltaics throughout the country. 

Sarah Bendok (right), stands with researcher Nesrine Rouini outside the Biosphere’s agrisolar operation.

Also attending the event was Sarah Bendok, a high-school freshman from Phoenix, Arizonaand founder of Growing Green, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization focused on improving agriculture while simultaneously decreasing negative impacts on the environment. Bendok is planning to create an agrivoltaic site at her local community garden and is participating in the AgriSolar Clearinghouse’s peer-to-peer mentoring program under the guidance of Dr. Barron-Gafford and graduate student Nesrine Rouini in pursuit of obtaining the Girl Scout Gold Award.

Attendees arrive at the event outside Biosphere 2.

Thank you to Dr. Barron-Gafford and the Greg Barron-Gafford Research Group; Jesse Puckett; Enel; Rob Davis; Biosphere 2; University of Arizona; Chefs Erin, Mateo, and Janos; the AgriSolar Clearinghouse team; and all the good people that braved the weather to join our agrisolar community in the celebration.  

A happy attendee with some solar-grown refreshments.

More photos from the event can be found here: AgriSolar Farm to Table at Biosphere 2 | Flickr. 

Sign up for the AgriSolar Extra to be sure you know about upcoming Follow the Sun Tour stops.  

University of Arizona Researchers Awarded $1.2 Million to Explore Agrisolar 

“Researchers will test three different watering strategies, ranging from intensive irrigation to almost no water, and use the shadows cast by solar panels to provide benefits to the agricultural process. The most heavily watered plot will closely replicate current agricultural practices and include plants with greater water needs, like tomatoes and varieties of lettuce. The second plot will involve watering to establish growth, but much less thereafter, to reintroduce native grasses. The final plot will require little to no watering and include ‘climate smart’ plants that have grown for hundreds, if not thousands, of years in the region: prickly pear, agave, legumes and others.” – University of Arizona 

Germany’s Vattenfall Invests in 76-Megawatt Agrisolar Project 

“For the first time, Vattenfall will implement this innovative concept of land use on a commercial scale with partners. The aim of the project in Tützpatz is to combine module types on different mounting systems with suitable agricultural uses over an area of 95 ha, and thus gain further practical experience for future commercial projects of this kind. According to current plans, construction at Tützpatz is scheduled to start in early summer 2023.” a– Reve 

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Low-Cost Wireless Sensing System for Precision Agriculture Applications in Orchards

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can be reliable tools in agricultural management. In this work, a low cost, low power consumption, and simple wireless sensing system dedicated for agricultural environments is presented. The system is applicable to small to medium sized fields, located anywhere with cellular network coverage, even in isolated rural areas. The novelty of the developed system lies in the fact that it uses a dummy device as Coordinator which through simple but advanced programming can receive, process, and send data packets from all End-notes to the cloud via a 4G cellular network. Furthermore, it is energy independent, using solar energy harvesting panels, making it feasible to operate in remote, isolated fields. A star topology was followed for the sake of simplification, low energy demands and increased network reliability. The developed system was tested and evaluated in laboratory and real field environment with satisfactory operation in terms of independence, and operational reliability concerning packet losses, communication range (>250m covering fields up to 37ha), energy autonomy, and uninterrupted operation. The network can support up to seven nodes in a 30 min data acquisition cycle. These results confirmed the potential of this system to serve as a viable option for monitoring environmental, soil, and crop parameters.

Low-Cost-Wireless-Sensing-System-for-Precision-AgDownload

Agrisolar Projects in Arizona Utilize American Indian Techniques

AgriSolar Clearinghouse partner Greg Barron-Gafford, a professor at the University of Arizona, is looking to indigenous knowledge to find solutions to modern agricultural challenges through agrivoltaics. Barron-Gafford is part of a research team that is using an agrisolar approach to find solutions for agricultural challenges like water shortages and direct sunlight on crops in the desert.

Intense, direct sunlight in the desert and water shortages are both issues addressed by the researchers at the Biosphere 2 lab and the Tumamoc Resilience Gardens, in Arizona. Traditional techniques used by the American Indian tribes in the area for more than 5,000 years may offer solutions, and the measures are being tested in these facilities.

“Instead of relying on tree shade, we’re underneath an energy producer that’s not competing for water,” Barron-Gafford recently told the Washington Post.

Vegetation on site at the Biosphere 2 location will plant crops under solar panels as well as the traditional rock berms and rock piles used by area tribes.

“We’ve had 5,000 years of farmers trying out different strategies for dealing with heat, drought and water scarcity,” Gary Nabhan, an ethnobotanist and agrarian activist working at the Biosphere 2 location in Arizona, explained to the Washington Post.

Pairing solar with appropriate agricultural land may address the issues faced by desert farmers by shading crops from the intense Arizona sunlight, which can provide a cool area for plants to flourish under solar panels. Solar panels, unlike shade trees, don’t need water which means crops don’t have to compete for the scarce resource.

Not relying on irrigation canals to nourish thirsty crops such as leafy greens, nuts, and fruits means there is less of an impact on the immense amount of water that has typically been drawn from aquifers and, in Arizona’s case, the Colorado River.

Not only does an agrivoltaic approach to these challenges mean less impact on water supply, but it allows communities to build energy resilience.

Read more about the Biosphere 2 operation here, and the Tumamoc Resilience Gardens here.