Smart greenhouses to enable vegetable farming in Arctic regions

Scientists from the Tomsk Polytechnic University have designed smart greenhouses for the Arctic regions, removing the need to depend on climate conditions or sunlight. The greenhouses contain automatic processes, with polycrystalline LED materials used to provide the vegetables with the necessary spectrum of light. The vegetables will grow hydroponically (without soil), with tests already underway on cucumbers in the greenhouse. These tests will analyse how plants react to various kinds of light.

While the inhabitants of the Yamalo-Nenets Region consume about 11,000 tons of cucumbers and tomatoes every year, local greenhouses produce only 18 tons. This requires food to be transported from the Krasnodar, Stavropol, Tyumen, Kirov, Moscow regions, and from the CIS countries. The project consists of a public-private partnership which will produce about 1,000 tons of vegetables a year.