Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
This integrative project addresses the following UIE priorities: 1) identifying and promoting the horticultural, social, and economic factors that contribute to successful urban, indoor, and other emerging agricultural production systems; 2) developing new crop varieties and agricultural products to connect to new markets; 3) exploring new technologies that minimize energy, improve water management, and other inputs for increased food production.Specific objectives include: 1) Maximize productivity and profitability of AP by testing different combinations of 5 high- value fish species/strains with alternative plants and different regimes of fish density and water temperature; 2) Develop novel business models through economic analysis of the different production model systems; 3) Analyze rhizosphere metagenomes and metatranscriptomes to determine the structure and function of microbe communities that are present and perform trials with supplementing microbes to enhance nutrient cycling; 4) Model the relationships between rhizobiomes, fish, and plant production; 5) Test the production model systems in at least 3 commercial facilities located in different climate zones; 6) Disseminate research and on-farm testing results to the AP industry and end-users through Extension Foundation, fact sheets, and online tools, and 7) Provide classroom and hands-on training and mentoring to AP farmers/operators through workshops, AP facility tours and other extension tools The objectives will be accomplished through transdisciplinary efforts, partnerships and collaborations of 2 universities, and 3-4 commercial AP facilities.This project is expected to contribute to 1) enhancing UIE sustainability and satisfying human food and fiber needs; 2) enhancing quality of life and access to safe nutritious food for urban and Native American communities, and society as a whole; and 3) reducing barriers to land access, and 4) sustaining the economic viability of urban farm operations.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
40%
Applied
60%
Developmental
0%
Goals / Objectives
Goal 1: Develop sustainable profitable AP model systemsObjective 1 - Maximize productivity and profitability of AP by testing different combinations of 5 high-value fish species/strains with 8 plants and different regimes of fish density and water temperature.Objective 2 - Develop novel business models through economic analysis of the different production model systems and socioeconomic analysis of AP impacts on local economiesGoal 2: Determine microbial players that optimize nutrient conversion and cycling in the AP system treatments investigated and test whether supplementing the microbial consortia improves nutrient cycling.Objective 3 - Analyze rhizosphere metagenomes and metatranscriptomes under each thermal and food manipulation scenario to determine the structure and function of microbe communities that are present and perform trials with supplementing microbes to enhance nutrient cycling.Objective 4- Model the relationships between rhizobiomes, fish, and plant productionGoal 3: Demonstrate & disseminate research results and techniques to industry & end-usersObjective 5 - Test the production model systems in at least 3 commercial facilities located in different climate zones.Objective 6 - Disseminate research and on-farm testing results to the AP industry and end-users through Extension Foundation, fact sheets, and online tools.Objective 7 - Provide classroom and hands-on training and mentoring to AP farmers/operators through workshops, AP facility tours and other extension tools.
Project Methods
Goal 1: Develop sustainable profitable AP model systemsObjective 1 - Maximize AP productivity and profitabilityExperiments will be conducted at the OSU and UNH AP facilities aquaponic systems in Years 1-3. This 3-year portion of the study will raise all-male bluegill, superior largemouth bass, and fast-growing striped bass at OSU, and genetically improved (not genetically modified) rainbow trout and fast-growing all-female perch at UNH. Those fish will be randomly assigned to triplicate tanks and fed a diet that is both size and species-specific. Each AP unit has three floating raft hydroponic systems, and each raft will be randomly assigned one of the following plant species each year: Year 1, leafy greens, lettuce; Year 2, fruiting crops, cherry tomato and cucumber; Year 3, culinary herbs, purple basiland parsley.Objective 2 - Develop novel business models through economic and socioeconomic analysisWe will use a standard time and motion study to determine the amount of labor and capital embodied in each unit of output. Thismethod, which is often used in production economics to build mathematical programming models for dairies and other operations, will be applied to AP to give us information on the cost of production per unit. This information will later be used to help elucidate preferential methods of production (i.e., those that are more cost effective) at additional sites. It is essential to provide a template for modeling and comparing costs of the proposed system to existing systems to determine whether it is economically feasible; in addition, nonmarket benefits such as reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and benefits of these new systems can be identified.The socioeconomic impacts of AP enterprises on local economies include direct, indirect, and induced impacts. Through employment of community residents, local purchases, and revenues generated from the AP enterprise, the industry has a direct effect on the local economy; indirect impacts include purchases of inputs as well as demand for the services from craftworkers, contractors, and other technical professionals from the community. Expenditures in the AP effort have multiplier effects on the rest of the region's economy, both in income and employment, wherein each dollar spent on a project creates more than one dollar of impact on the region. These metrics will be assessed through the use of an economic input-output model that assumes revenues from the AP businesses lead to initial expenditure on inputs for the business in the local economy. This expenditure then produces an amount of output in the local economy which can be attributed to the purchases of the producers. Lastly, we will develop novel business models based on the AP production model systems identified and the economic analyses of model systems.Goal 2: Determine microbial playersMicrobes (predominantly fungi and prokaryotes) are the major drivers of biochemical processes, especially those that transform excreted N into plant-accessible N. Deriving an understanding of the microbial consortia structure and function is necessary to optimize AP production systems. During the various trials, we will query the most important reservoirs most likely to have a strong response to the AP treatments implemented at each site: rhizospheres, circulating water, water treatment units, and sludge. We will employ metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses to define the composition and activity of microbial communities in each of these reservoirs. Metagenomics (studies of DNA from an environment) has the distinct advantage over culture-based investigations of providing information for the full suite of organisms present, and when advanced statistical tools are applied to those sequence data, we can assess not only community composition but also the pathways of potential microbial activity.Objective 3 - Determine the structure and function of microbe communitiesWhole community DNA will be extracted using the Qiagen PowerWater and PowerSoil DNA Extraction Kits and RNA will be extracted following the protocol described in Kearns et al. (2016). RNA samples will be checked for DNA contamination via PCR using general bacterial primers Eub338/Eub517 (Fierer et al., 2005). If necessary, DNA contamination will be removed using the Amplification Grade DNase I Kit (Sigma-Aldrich). Sequencing indices and adapters will be removed from raw FASTQ data, and other non-coding reads such as tRNA and rRNA sequences will be filtered by aligning the adapter-filtered reads against reference tRNA sequences derived from the Genomic tRNA database (gtrnadb.ucsc.edu), then genomic and transcriptomic reads, will be submitted to the MG-RAST pipeline (Keegan et al., 2016, Meyer et al. 2008) for further QC processing, taxonomy, annotation, and functional predictions. The MG-RAST server will interrogate metagenomes and metatranscriptomes for KEGG homology (www.genome.jp/kegg/)and these results will be employed to determine the impact of treatment.Objective 4- Model the relationships between rhizobiomes, fish, and plant productionFunctional group abundance, gene expression, fish type, plant type, water chemistry, etc., are amenable to multivariate statistical techniques. We will subject the data to unconstrained ordination and multivariate statistical analysis to discern the relative gene expression responses and which factors have the greatest effect on community composition. These results will be used to guide amendments, alterations in AP technique, and to some extent the economic analyses.Goal 3: Demonstrate and disseminate research results and techniques to industryObjective 5 - Test the production model systems in at least 3 commercial AP facilitiesAP production model systems developed through this research will be tested through extension in commercial AP facilities with identified industry partners for commercialization. We propose to conduct in Year 4 testing of the three best production model systems with sustainable and balanced feed scenarios and feeding regimes we developed/identified. We will work with commercial facilities in 3-4 geographic climate regions so that each model system will be tested in two replicated AP systems at two different locations for two cycles (n=8). We will develop and adhere to consistent general protocols at each of the selected locations. At the end of each cycle, harvests from all AP systems will be evaluated for differences in the key production parameters of fish and plant production (e.g., survival, growth, fish feed conversion, total production, etc.). Water quality variables, nutrient dynamics, microbes (reservoirs sampled will depend on results of Years 1-3), and profitability (business and socioeconomics) will be analyzed within and among these commercial AP production systems.Objective 6 - Disseminate research and on-farm testing results to the AP industry and end-usersAt the end of Year 4, an on-farm field day will be held at each commercial testing site to share project results at harvest. Project results will be disseminated to the AP, aquaculture, horticulture industry, and to end-users via Extension Foundation, fact sheets, newsletters, listservs, website media, public presentations, and scientific publications. Additionally, extension specialists at OSU and UNH will discuss methods, results, and farmer impacts with other Extension and Outreach personnel in Midwest, Northeast and central Appalachian regions to increase dissemination to the general public. At the completion of this project, we expect to be able to provide at least three "best production model systems" to the AP industry.Objective 7 - Provide classroom and hands-on training and mentoring to AP farmers/operatorsWe will provide training and mentoring for 150 (50/year) AP operators through 3 workshops (1/year) and 3 bus tours (1/year) of established aquaponic farms and facilities in OH and NH in year 2 - 4.