Crop Production

A zoo may not seem the obvious place for horticultural innovation. Kevin Frediani knows otherwise. He reports on a new growing system that may have wider implications for urban crop production.

Photos: Paignton Zoo Environmental Park

Feeding time at the zoo

A Sulawesi Crested Black Macaque, a member of a threatened species of primates, whose world conservation programme is co-ordinated at Paignton Zoo Environmental Park, benefits from the enrichment that the new system provides in mixed salad leaves.

Kevin Frediani is Curator of Plants and Gardens at Paignton Zoo Environmental Park. He trained in horticulture and plant science at Nottingham University. His varied career includes training in the curation of living collections at Cambridge University Botanic Garden and teaching the care and management of trees and their landscapes, while at the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC). At SAC he became a national examiner for the care of trees and helped write the new British Standard for Tree Care (BS3998: 2008). Later he worked at Windsor Great Park, where, as Assistant Superintendant of Parks in charge of the private Royal Gardens and Grounds, he also was charged with the care of 3,250ha of internationally important parkland landscape. He was the first Curator of Plants at the Zoological Society of London where he developed a new department intended to transform the garden landscape at London Zoo and Whipsnade Wild Animal Park. He recently returned from working abroad as Hortulanus at De Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam. He has been in post at Paignton since June 2008 and recently completed his postgraduate degree in conservation and environmental management at Surrey University.

aignton Zoo Environmental Park is not the first place that would come to mind, if you were thinking of horticultural innovation. Until recently, horticulturists outside of zoos were mostly unaware of how integral plants have become within the landscapes of modern zoos. Nor would they necessarily be aware of the development of specialist displays or immersive exhibitory, where the visitor shares the same landscape but not the same space as the animals they have come to see (Owen, 2008, Miles, 2009). The term - immersive exhibitory - was first coined by Landscape Architects, Jones and Jones Landscape when working on the first of the new generation of zoos in America (Seattle Zoo Master plan1976). It is a term not yet in wide use, but now that more immersive exhibits are being designed and executed in most of the top European and UK zoos, it may become more familiar. Existing examples include the squirrel monkey, gorilla settings and the walkthrough bird aviary at London Zoo. Paignton Zoo opened to the public in 1923 following 20 years of development as a private collection by its benefactor Herbert Whitley. The zoo has always had a large botanic collection which today numbers around 5,000 plant accessions. Currently 2,500 species are represented on the 30ha site in Devon. The gardens collection has recently been

reviewed and its focus is to optimise the potential for plants to support and underline the zoos mission of education, research and conservation of the worlds animals, plants and their habitats. The result is a new botanical direction and an integrated approach to zoo horticulture (Frediani, 2009a & b). Many of the plant-use themes highlighted in the Integrated Zoo Horticulture table (see Figure 1), are relatively easy to understand and also to achieve. A few required a bit more exploration and innovation to achieve. Food production would involve land being taken away from exhibits. Enrichment first had to be defined in terms of the use of landscape and plants in order to encourage natural behaviour in animals (Frediani, 2009c); while sustainability as a concept proved difficult to interpret in terms of tangible developments for visitors to see and enjoy.

Sustainable project
In August 2008 the zoo hosted a sustainability event to showcase the work of environmental businesses working in the southwest to its visitors as part of a green solutions festival. A Cornish company, Valcent (EU) Ltd, which was beginning to promote a new vertical growing technology to grow fresh leaf crops on a conveyor system attended the festival. Although not yet fully developed to grow crops, a pilot project had already been realised to grow algae crops as a biofuel in El Paso, Texas. The company was planning a new pilot project to adapt this technology to grow fresh leaf crops in Cornwall. The system, VertiCcrop, had funding but no place had yet been defined for it to be built. Four months into the post as curator of plants and gardens, I presented a vision for the gardens based around this new sustainable technology. The aim was to show in the public area of the zoo an exhibit that produced food for the zoos animals to offset food bills, increase food security, and facilitate research and development. This latter aim would lead to the improvement
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Figure 1 Eight plant-use themes that define the breadth of zoo horticulture (after Frediani, 2009).

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The VertiCrop at Paignton Zoo showing the vertical growing system.

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and development of the diets of captive animals. A project followed, which some ten months later opened as the first Vertical Farm in a zoo or botanic garden, using this growing system to produce crops for the zoos animals (Bouquet, 2010).

How does it work?

The system comprises 3m high, multilevel growing trays, which are suspended from an overhead track. Each `rig consists of eight levels of growing channels or `trays of which there are two different sizes to accommodate different crops. Each growing tray has been purpose-built for the system and a number of different crops can be grown simultaneously.Trays are adjustable for depth of buffer solutions and the nutrient levels can be modulated as the nutrient solution is delivered through a funnel, the nutrients being time-dosed at the feeding station.

Using this system the

120sq.m greenhouse grows three times the 3,000 plants that would be expected on a conventional hydroponic system
Advanced hydroponic technologies make it possible for a total of 70 custom-made rigs, holding 16 growing trays suspended on a closed loop conveyor to grow 11,200 plants. The plants are maintained in constant motion around the greenhouse track with each circuit taking approximately 40 minutes to optimise the exposure to light, and support gaseous exchange. Using this system the 120sq m greenhouse grows three times the 3,000 plants that would be expected on a conventional hydroponic system (Bayley, J. et al 2010). A computerised Priva environmental

The original model of the VertiCrop system, first shown to the author at the Green Solution Festival in August 2008. Chris Bradford (left), Managing Director of Valcent (EU) with Kevin Frediani.

control system provides plants with the optimal growing environment, while also integrating the advanced hydroponic technology that automatically supplies water and nutrients at the central feeding station. The run-off solutions are captured and recycled through the whole irrigation system. This enables a saving on water and nutrient-use and avoids the pollution associated with field-grown crops. The use of vertical space reduces the floor

Figure 2. VertiCrop increases yield per unit area (after Bayley, 2010).

space required to grow the same amount of crop, thereby reducing the investment in land that would normally be required to support the project. The conveyer movement ensures even light and air distribution. It also allows for centralised locations for irrigation, and the loading and unloading of crops. The result is an increase in growing area available since the space needed for access is reduced, which offers a number of benefits, including reduction of the risk of introducing pest and diseases (see Figure 2). The zoos pilot has been installed and is fully operational. At each level, specially designed trays carry various micro-greens, lettuce and salad mixes, that have been planted sequentially to provide a regular supply of fresh green leaves. The primary focus is economic profitability, improved nutritional value and environmental enrichment to enhance the lives of captive animals in the zoo.

Figure 3. Example of how space can be saved by using this innovative system compared with conventional horizontal hydroponic systems. Note that the total footprint includes a 15% service area (After Bayley, 2010).

Figure 4. Comparison of the area required to grow lettuce plants in the field, a conventional hydroponic system and via the 3m high Paignton Zoo or 6m high optimised VertiCrop system.

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The future
The technological advances of the system allow for the efficient use of precious resources such as water and land offer. A system such as this has applications that could be important to solve problems in the wider world, for example, in urban environments and areas with extreme climates or land degradation. Traditional food production is competing for its land and water resources with an increasing number of emerging alternative uses, including biofuel and fibre production. Land managers are also under pressure to adapt and contribute to the mitigation of climate change through less intensive use of the soil. The Verticrop system offers an integrated hydroponic approach to address this central issue, using the most advanced technology to ensure efficient use of resources in crop production. The use of this technology makes it possible to bring commercial agriculture into the urban environment as part of an integrated approach to provided food security. A 6m high system requires 87% less land and building footprint than conventional hydroponic systems to grow the same amount of plants (see Figures 3 and 4). Typically this represents projected savings in excess of 40% on building and associated costs (Bayley, 2010). Combined with the latest lighting technologies, such as LED, it opens the way for the warehouse culture of crops to protect the crop. Redundant buildings in city centres could be brought back into use, with suitable environmental controls being established and maintained.

Food sense
The annual bill for animal feed at Paignton is currently in excess of 200,000, so the spotlight is on the high-intensity VertiCrop system to produce ultra-fresh produce onsite, and also to reduce both food miles and food costs for the zoo. The vegetables, herbs and other produce grown on site are harvested and fed out immediately, guaranteeing the animals have the freshest produce currently available. Zoo staff and researchers are looking to use the system to not only enrich the lives of the animals with fresh produce, but also to manipulate the nutritional quality of the vegetables being grown using this system. In hydroponics and protected growing environments, there is much more control of plant nutrition than there is in soil-grown crops. Starting with a base of good quality water, the nutrient solution can be manipulated to influence the compositional quality of the hydroponic crop. Whether this is for animals or for improving human nutrition, it is an idea that appeals to many. Paignton Zoo is particularly interested in the nutritional quality of fresh fodder and is hoping that the food produced with this system can be used to address problems such as `hemosiderosis in zoo animals. Hemosiderosis is a world-wide problem in zoos where certain animals, no longer dining on the food of their native habitats, consume too much iron which is stored in body tissues. This iron builds up in organs such as the liver where it stays permanently and causes severe tissue damage over time. While zoo animals can be fed commercial pre-mixes low in iron, the fresh fruits and vegetables fed to many animals as part or all of their diet typically contain more iron than is needed. Fruit, vegetables and herbs are not only important in the diet of captive animals, but they are also important in enrichment and activity programmes for animals, so the issue of iron levels and hemosiderosis can become widespread in some species. This problem is further compounded at Paignton zoo as vegetables grown locally in the deep red, iron rich soils of Devon are higher than normal in iron. In general, commercially grown vegetables world-wide produced with soil fertiliser additions would be expected to have higher iron content than the vegetation many zoo animals would consume in their native environments. Hydroponic systems use reverse osmosis, distilled or rain water (free from naturally occurring iron in the water supply), so it is relatively simply to lower iron in the solution to levels where plant iron deficiency and growth reductions are limited. The resulting tissue has minimal iron levels, making it more suitable to animals prone to developing hemosiderosis. Further manipulations of the nutrient solution and environment could see improvements in dry weight, fibre, vitamin and beneficial nutrient levels, phyto nutrients, chlorophyll and other health-related factors in the fresh greens which are difficult or impossible to achieve with commercially-prepared dried animal feeds.

Photo: Paignton Zoo Environmental Park

sustainable way to achieve an important social responsibility.

References
Bayley J. (2010). VertiCrop yield and environmental data. Valcent (EU) Ltd. Launceston. Cornwall. Bayley J, Frediani K & Yu M. (2010). Sustainable food production for the 21st century -VertiCrop High Density Vertical Growing. ISHS in press. Bouquet T. (2010). Welcome to the 21stCentury of work the vertical farmer. The Times Magazine. 09.01.2010 pp37. Frediani K. (2009a). The ethical use of plants in zoos: informing selection choices, uses and management strategies. International Zoo Yearbook. 43: 29-52. Frediani K. (2009b). The Amsterdam Hortus developing collection themes in established collections. Sibbaldia No 7. 1-8. Frediani K. (2009c). Exploring the potential for plant-based enrichment. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of Environmental Enrichment. ICEE 2009. Miles T. (2009). Zoo Horticulture. James Bruce Lecture 2009. The Horticulturist Winter 2009. 18 1. Owen J. (2008). Blurring the boundaries. The RHS Garden: October, 2008.

Urban crop production

Beyond the zoo, well that is a question! Alongside traditional crop production in rural areas there is now a very real opportunity to look at urban crop production on a commercial scale. In an urban environment the system can provide healthy food close to the market place, reducing packaging and transportation costs, relieving the burden on infrastructure and saving energy. It also has the potential to be situated on land that may be unsuitable for other purposes or at present not utilised, such as roof tops, basements, or disused industrial sites. With so much potential it is surely a matter of time before we see more investment in vertical growing technology and wider acceptance of hydroponic culture by the public in our cities. While government leaders are looking at new strategies for food security and energy conservation, the system used at Paignton seems to provide the first of the new generation of growing technologies to address these needs in our urban environments.q

Fresher than fresh: just 15 minutes after harvest freshly cut leaves are offered to one of the zoos elephants.

Through the pilot project, the original brief - to educate visitors to the zoo about sustainable (horticultural) technology, to provide food and plant-based enrichment for the zoos animals and facilitate plant-based research - has been achieved. At the zoo, novel nutritional research is being conducted to find how to improve animal nutritional requirements using this system (see panel above). Eventually, it will be possible to extend the research direction to include vertical cultivation of food, biofuel and medicinal crops, such as high-value pharmaceutical products. There is potential for expanding the system to provide schools, hospitals and housing estates in cities and towns with the means to grow their own fresh vegetables in a
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