Innovation and inspiration a plenty was on offer at last weekends fantastic TedxTokyo event which we were lucky enough to be invited to. Amongst presentations covering everything from climate change to female empowerment there was a particularly interesting session from medical bio expert Dr Yuichi Mori. Showcasing his invention of a unique, futuristic agricultural system called Imec, he demonstrated how crops can grow in almost any environment, even in space.
“A new innovative production technology of safe, high quality agricultural crops under minimized water and soil consumption,” Dr Mori exhibited what looks like a sheet of cling-film on which a healthy looking crop of cress was growing. Demonstrating how it was actually rooted onto the material by holding it upside down, it was amazing how the plant seemed to be growing very healthily without any soil at all. The cling-fim like material is actually based on medical-membrane technology, a field in which Dr Mori spent may years working in, and called a “hydromembrane”. Seeds are planted in the hydromembrane which also contains a culture medium with all necessary nutrients and water for the plant to develop. The plants develop a network of fine and dense roots closely attached to the material, and are able to fully develop using a mere one fifth of the water consumption needed in conventional soil based agriculture. The system also forces plants to regulate more sugar and amino acids in order to grow which has the knock on effect of producing particularly high quality crops, tomatoes and strawberries grown using the Imec method are particularly sweet and contain higher nutritional values.
The Imec membrane has the capability of blocking any harmful germs or bacteria usually passed through the soil to plants, meaning that the crops also require no chemical pesticides or fertilizers to grow. The fact that the sheet can be laid down on almost any surface also means that crops can be grown in nearly any environment including concrete, ice or over the top of non fertile soils. Having already been implemented in a desert environment and producing positive results it was even recently taken into space by Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi who grew herbs using the “hydromembrane” on the international space station. Dr Mori commented how he sees this technology to be an answer to restoring the agricultural business in Northern Japan where the sea water deposited by the tsunami has left soils infertile. Another great example of innovation that could help drive Japan’s economy out of disaster.
Image courtesy of TedxTokyo
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