‘Plants in thin Air’ – Research Group [NEDLab]

This research group was formed to test the feasibility and effectiveness of indoor aeroponic culinary crop production using custom woven growing tray textiles. Two distinct monofilament trays with a waffle weave pattern were developed to test the farming of alfalfa and curly cress microgreen growth.  Outcomes of crop production in the two trays were compared against a commercial (media-based) aeroponic growing system which served as the control experiment. Data collected and compared among experiments included: crop yield, stem and root length, fresh and dry weight, plant nutrition, CO2 levels, relative humidity, and energy consumption. Preliminary observations and outcomes were presented at the Textile Society of America Symposium in 2014 and ARCC 2017 Conference

Team: 

KSU CAED Architecture Program
PI and primary Advisor: Diane Davis-Sikora
CoPI and Co-advisor: Reid Coffman, PhD
Megan Haftl ‘15
J Max Wagner ‘15
Catalina Estrada ‘15

KSU School of Art, Textiles
CoPI  and Co-advisor: Professor Janice Lessman-Moss, Trey D Gehring ‘17