Walking into Yangling Smart Agricultural Demonstration Park in China's agri-science-city Yangling of Shaanxi Province is like walking into a scene from a futuristic film. Green vegetables grow on white plates behind the glass walls, bathing in electric lights and drawing water and nutrients from an accurately mixed solution running through the plates.
"After being used, the solution will be recycled, disinfected, and injected with new nutrients before another circulation. This method saves 92 percent on water," said Li Meng, general manager of Yangling Agricultural Science Group Business Operation and Management Co Ltd. Covering an area of 48 hectares, the 3-year-old demonstration park showcases more than 1,100 kinds of new technology, vegetable varieties, and agriculture facility equipment from home and abroad.
Besides green vegetables, on the white plates in the plant factory grow other plants, such as cherry tomatoes, pansies, and strawberries, throughout the 30,000 square-meter intelligent greenhouses. All of them are water-saving, with outdoor facilities used to collect rainwater, which can be used to water the plants after being filtered. In this planting system, the growth cycle of vegetables shortens by one-third compared with that of those growing in the normal fashion, to about 42 days, Li says.
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