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Hybrid Hydroponic Horticulture (WP2) aims to combine hydroponic and conventional soil-based agriculture, creating a linked network of hybrid demonstrator farms in peri-urban areas to encourage improvements in dietary health and environmental sustainability.
Dates: July 2021 to December 2024
Research Questions:
What is the potential to transform the sustainability, production capacity and nutritional benefits of UK-grown leafy greens by deploying novel foam based hydroponic horticulture with synthetic microbiomes in peri-urban farms alongside existing business?
Academic Team
Lead:
Jonathan Leake
Professor of Plant-Soil Interactions at the University of Sheffield.
Working with:
Duncan Cameron
Professor of Environmental Sustainability, University of Manchester.
Jill Edmondson
EPSRC Living With Environmental Change Fellow in the Department of Plant and Animal Sciences at the University of Sheffield.
Lenny Koh
Professor of Operations Management at the Sheffield University Management School.
Jacob Nickles
Knowledge Exchange Associate in the Faculty of Science at the University of Sheffield.
Anthony Ryan
Professor of Physical Chemistry and Director of the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures at the University of Sheffield.
Stephen Rolfe
Professor of Plant Science in the School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield.
Bhavani Shankar
Professorial Research Fellow in Food and Health within the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield.
Jurriaan Ton
Professor of Plant Environmental Signalling in the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield.
Mustafa Ali
Research Associate at the Sheffield University Management School
Toby Evans
PhD Researcher, Department of Biosciences, University of Sheffield
Harry Wright
Research Associate, Department of Chemistry, University of Sheffield.