Apr 2022
Host: The WDRC Students Committee
Abstract:
The
Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility at the University of
Guelph in Canada is among the world's leading venues for research and
technology development devoted to biological life support (ie. plants in
space) for human space exploration. The requirements for high fidelity
environment control for reliable and safe food production in space are
among the most critical issues to resolve as food determines how far
from Earth we can go and how long we can stay. These same plant
production technologies have equally useful applications here on Earth,
especially in extreme environments such as Canada's North and the
deserts of the Middle East. Plants are a product of their environment
within the limits of their genetic complement. The environmental context
determines many attributes such as size, shape, colour, and complement
of secondary metabolites such as taste and nutritional composition. The
prospect of standardizing these attributes requires breeding and
horticultural management strategies including environment control
strategies. Technologies that evolved in the life support requirements
for space exploration will be discussed and demonstrated for their
relevance in terrestrial agri-food industry sectors.
Bio:
Dr.
Mike Dixon is a Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences and
Director of the Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility
(CESRF), University of Guelph. He served as Chair of the Department of
Environmental Biology from 2003-2008. Dr. Dixon joined the University
as a NSERC University Research Fellow after earning his PhD from
Edinburgh University in Scotland and holding a post-doctoral position at
the University of Toronto. As project leader for the Canadian research
team investigating the contributions of plants to life support in space,
Dr. Dixon formed the Space and Advanced Life Support Agriculture
(SALSA) program at the University of Guelph. This program currently
represents Canada's main contribution to the international space science
objectives in biological life support and collaborates with NASA and
the Canadian and European Space Agencies. The CESRF is among the world's
leading research venues for technology developments and research
dedicated to studying plant and microbial interactions in advanced life
support systems. The technical "pull" of space exploration has aided the
development of a wide range of technologies that have spun off into
applications in terrestrial agri-food sectors and most notably the
phyto-pharmaceutical (medicine from plants) sector in recent years.