Engineering Crops for Extraterrestrial Environments 

Zero-Discharge No-till Farming in Space: The Ultimate in Agriculture 

Agriculture is a cycle of using energy, resources, and specific conditions to grow food. The Earth provides a continuous supply of life-sustaining elements through oceans, atmosphere, vast ecosystems, and consistent schedules that provide access to and breaks from sunlight. Trying to grow food in space strips away the environment and resources we are familiar with and requires ingenuity. With no resupply missions, no natural atmospheric shielding, and no room for inefficiency, every input must be carefully chosen and resources recycled.  

Dr. Bruce Bugbee (Professor of Crop Physiology, Apogee Instruments President) presented two talks highlighting 40 years of research funded by NASA about how to grow food in fully closed regenerative systems designed for space. These systems rethink traditional agricultural constraints. Water and nutrients are continuously recovered and reused. Carbon dioxide levels are intentionally elevated to push photosynthesis beyond typical field limits. Genetic selection focuses on improving harvest index and sink strength, reducing waste biomass, and simplifying recycling in tightly managed ecosystems.  

This research has addressed growing plants indoors under electric lighting, often in stacked systems designed to maximize output per unit volume. This has driven the development of ultra-compact, high-yield cultivars—beginning with the release of Apogee wheat in the 1990s and continuing today with super-dwarf varieties of additional crops.  

The tools, genetics, and environmental control strategies developed for extraterrestrial food production are shaping the future of controlled environment agriculture here on Earth, too. Watch these talks to explore how research for the most extreme growing environments is redefining what’s possible in agriculture.

Key takeaways from the presentation:

• An indirect method for evaluating air temperature accuracy
• A straightforward approach for checking precipitation gauge calibration
• Ways to use models and complementary measurements to assess net radiation performance
• Which sensors or measurement methods work best for air temperature, precipitation, and net radiation

Air temperature, precipitation, and net radiation sit at the foundation of agricultural and ecological research. They inform irrigation decisions, energy balance models, crop simulations, and long-term climate analyses. But how can users worldwide be sure these measurements are correct? 

Unlike some physical quantities, there is no single, universally accepted primary reference standard for these variables in field conditions. That makes accuracy less straightforward than many assume. Establishing confidence in these measurements requires thoughtful calibration strategies, creative verification techniques, and carefully designed sensor intercomparisons. 

In this talk, Mark Blonquist (Apogee Instruments, Chief Scientist) shared insights from field studies that directly compare instruments measuring temperature, rainfall, and net radiation. Those findings are valuable to researchers, instrument developers, and commercial users. He presents information that answers questions around which approaches produce the most reliable data and identify what contributes to those approaches working well. He also offers best practices for lowering measurement uncertainty in the field. 

Watch the talk here > 

Apogee Connect for Raspberry Pi is a new application built to automate data collection from Apogee's Guardian monitors. It will store the collected data in a csv file so that it can be easily accessed and viewed by the user. It also gives users customization options such as start/stop time, logging interval, csv file location, etc. This provides a flexible way to automate data collection from Apogee Bluetooth sensors, making it ideal for researchers, growers, and engineers who need continuous environmental monitoring. And while dataloggers can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, a simple Raspberry Pi can be purchased for under $50 USD. Apogee utilized this to make an affordable solution for automated datalogging.

There are two ways to use Apogee Connect:

1. As a standalone command line application with straightforward commands for interacting with Apogee's Bluetooth sensors.
2. As a Python module for those looking to implement the application’s functionality directly into their own Python script.

In addition to our Guardian monitors, this app can work with any of our µCache sensor packages. Use the application’s "manual collection mode" to ensure that the µCache is advertising before attempting to collect data. Stay tuned for future updates, including automatic collection for all Bluetooth sensors!

POSSIBILITIES USING THE RPI APPLICATION

The value of the Raspberry Pi Apogee Connect application lies in its simplicity and versatility. Most commonly, people will use it with their Guardian in a greenhouse. Once it's up and running, the system automatically collects data without requiring you to remember to open the app on your phone when you want to track the sensors’ readings. You can simply check in on the data whenever you like, making it the perfect solution for passive monitoring. When you’re ready for data, it’s all there.

To take it a step further, Apogee Connect can integrate with your existing automation system. Use the Raspberry Pi to monitor real-time data and make immediate adjustments to conditions like light levels, temperature, humidity, or soil moisture. For instance, if the plants are receiving insufficient light, the system can reactively increase the light.

This takes the hands-off nature of datalogging and automation to the next level. Responsive system management makes projects more energy efficient by ensuring heating, cooling, lighting, watering, and humidifying only occur when necessary. Over time, continuously monitored data can be analyzed to program the system to predict energy needs and adjust in advance, avoiding inefficient spikes in energy consumption.

Apogee Connect for Raspberry Pi is made to scale effortlessly. It’s easy to connect multiple sensors to your Raspberry Pi, which allows you to simultaneously monitor data from various locations or positions. One user even explored using it on a conveyor belt system where the Raspberry Pi traveled with the items on the belt, collecting data from sensors stationed along the line.

Its flexibility makes Apogee Connect an invaluable tool for researchers, growers, and engineers looking to automate and optimize their environmental data collection.

QUICKSTART INSTRUCTIONS

Raspberry Pi general use documentation is available here: Raspberry Pi Documentation

Apogee Connect for Raspberry Pi Documentation: https://pypi.org/project/apogee-connect-rpi/ 

Below is a brief overview of installation and basic usage.

Installation

For simple installation, we recommend using an application called pipx. However, if you're comfortable setting up your own virtual environments, you can use pip, which should come pre-installed on your Raspberry Pi by default.

To install via pipx, run the following three commands in your terminal:

1. sudo apt install pipx (you may need to restart the terminal after this command)

2. pipx install apogee-connect-rpi

3. pipx ensurepath

Basic Usage

Once you've installed the app, you will use the keyword "apogee" followed by a specific command to interact with it in the terminal. Here are some common commands you will likely use:

1. Scan for Nearby Sensors

To scan for nearby sensors and obtain the sensor's MAC address, which is needed to interact with it, use:

      apogee scan

This will display a list of all nearby Apogee Bluetooth sensors along with the MAC address and identifying information such as alias, serial number, and sensor type.

2. Start Collection

The "collect" command will be the command you will use to initiate collection with your greenhouse sensor. For example: 

apogee collect AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF (where AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF is the MAC address of the sensor) 

3. Stop Collection

When ready to stop data collection, simply use the following command:

      apogee stop AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF

You can add additional arguments to set a custom start/stop time, change the logging interval, set the location of the csv file for data collection, etc. Additional commands, examples, and available optional arguments are all included in the detailed documentation here: https://pypi.org/project/apogee-connect-rpi

Need help?

Contact us with feedback or questions at techsupport@apogeeinstruments.com. We would love to hear how you are using this application and your ideas for future features!

In China, Apogee representatives Devin Overly, Keegan Garrity, Ben Owen, and Daniel Heath visited many distributors and potential partners like Kebai, Dianjiang Technology, Truwel, and others in a series of productive training and strategy sessions.

Beijing BoLun JingWei Tech

Beijing Techno Solutions

Channel Technology Group

Dianjiang Technology

Kebai Inc.

LICA United Technology

Beijing Truwel Instrument

In South Korea, the team visited TMI, Dong Bang Innovation, and B&P International. We saw opportunities to work with these companies to increase our reach in horticulture, controlled environment agriculture, and meteorology. 

TMI

Dong Bang Innovation

B&P International

Apogee also attended the LightSym 2024 symposium in Seoul, South Korea. Apogee’s founder, Dr. Bruce Bugbee, was featured as a keynote speaker in his discussion about lighting in horticulture. We are excited to return to LightSym in the future to discuss more horticulture needs with the attendees. To learn more about Dr. Bugbee's presentation, click here.

Engaging with our customers and partners in person allowed us to collect valuable feedback on the growing demand for our newest products like the Guardian greenhouse monitor, InSight spectroradiometer, Cloudburst weighing precipitation gauges, and daily light integral (DLI) meters. We gathered beneficial feedback on current and future products, how our products are performing in the Asian market, and new ideas for products specific to China's and South Korea's needs.

We are planning our return trip to Asia, so reach out if you'd like to schedule a meeting or training! What country should Apogee visit next?

Apogee Instruments recently attended the fourth annual AgriVoltaics Conference in Denver, Colorado.

Agrivoltaics is an innovative methodology that blends solar energy with agriculture. In this eco-friendly system, farmers cultivate crops under or adjacent to solar panels. Popular plants grown with agrivoltaics include root vegetables like potatoes, beets, and carrots; leafy greens like lettuce and spinach; and some berries like strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries.

The concept of agrivoltaics was proposed in 1982 by Adolf Goetzberger and Armin Zastrow. Agrivoltaics is also referred to as agrisolar, dual use solar, and low impact solar. Solar grazing is a similar concept where livestock, like cows and sheep, graze on the pasture grass around the solar panels and reduce the need for mowing.

Agrivoltaic installations provide many benefits such as:

• Enhancing land-use efficiency through providing space for both farming and power generation
• Extending the lifespan of solar panels through cooling effects of water evaporation
• Increasing crop yields via effective shading mechanisms
• Diversifying income for farmers with both power generation and crop development
• Developing renewable energy and lowering the carbon footprint

While agrivoltaics is promising, its research and technology are still in the beginning stages. Some potential drawbacks and concerns include:

• High cost of installing complex mounting systems and maintaining solar panels
• Space demands for solar panels could limit the availability of farmlands
• Crops like wheat and barley do not flourish with the increased shade and cooling of agrivoltaics
• Potential for disruption to suburban and urban communities as renewable energy infrastructure moves closer to cities

Apogee's sensors play a pivotal role in data collection and development in this budding field. Currently, Apogee’s full-spectrum quantum sensors are installed to monitor photosynthetically active radiation in research plots at “Jack’s Solar Garden” in Colorado. A vineyard in France has also installed Apogee infrared radiometers to measure the temperature of the solar panels and plants.

These are just a few exciting examples of how Apogee’s sensors, like quantum meters, pyranometers, infrared radiometers, and radiation frost detectors, are helping to shape the future of agrivoltaics. Stay tuned for new information and insight into the world of agrivoltaics using Apogee products.

Dr. Bruce Bugbee recently shed light on the evolution of lighting technology in horticulture in his keynote address at the LightSym 2024 symposium in Seoul, Korea. His talk, titled 'Light for Future', traced light’s development from candles to LEDs, which has created new research avenues for plant physiologists.

Dr. Bugbee outlined the work of Dutch biologist Frits Warmolt Went, who similarly studied how lighting and other environmental factors influence plants. Went was a proponent of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) and advocated for simple experiments.

Dr. Bugbee also shared insights from his own experiments using the far-red light spectrum to manipulate plant growth. Using Apogee Instruments’ tools like chlorophyll concentration meters, spectroradiometers, and quantum meters, Dr. Bugbee is working to redefine photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) to include far-red photons. 

Let Apogee guide you to successful future grows. Connect with us at our tradeshow booths and learn from Dr. Bugbee’s wisdom during his upcoming lectures. Our products are your key to improved efficiency in your research and cultivation objectives.

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Helpful Links

To read more about Dr. Bugbee's work on far-red photons' effects on PAR and lettuce, see these two case studies:

• Far-red Photons on Photosynthesis in Lettuce Canopies
• Blue and Far-red Light Affect Vegetative Growth and Pigmentation in Lettuce

Looking to delve deeper into the realm of extended PAR (400-750 nm)? Explore Apogee's ground-breaking ePAR sensors and meters for more comprehensive insights.

For those interested in deepening their understanding of far-red photons (700-750 nm), Apogee's Red - Far-Red and PAR-FAR sensors include valuable resources.

We at Apogee Instruments are thrilled to express our gratitude to all our amazing customers and subscribers who have supported us for the past 28 years. We couldn't have done it without you! To celebrate our 28th anniversary, we recently ran a 12 Days of Giveaways anniversary celebration on our Instagram account  @apogee_instruments. 

The giveaway ran from January 1st to January 12th, 2024. Each day featured a new prize, with the prize getting bigger and better each day. The first week featured Apogee swag items like screwdrivers, tape measurers, journals, hats, and t-shirts. The next week featured elite swag items like bags, power banks, and multi-tool Leatherman, as well as Apogee products like our sensor wands, brackets, and leveling plates. All these prizes led up to our grand prize on January 12th, which was a free Apogee meter of the winner's choice.

To be eligible to win, everyone involved in the giveaway was required to: 

1. Follow our Instagram account (@apogee_instruments) 
2. Like each day’s post 
3. Share each post on his or her story 
4. Comment and tag a friend 
5. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter 

As a result of our giveaway, we gained over 70 new followers on our social media and almost 100 new subscribers to our company newsletter. The winners were ecstatic to win their prizes, and we received only positive feedback on the giveaway.

Apogee Instruments is excited to run more giveaways in the future to thank our wonderful subscribers. 

The Apogee Instruments Guardian is a multi-sensor monitoring platform designed to be used in controlled environments like greenhouses. One of the sensors of this platform is a photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) sensor mounted on the top of the unit. The Guardian is typically mounted using a trio of hooks and wires that allow it to be hung from a structure like a pole or bar to measure both electric light and natural sunlight in a greenhouse setting.

However, the wires of this mounting setup cast shadows on the PAR sensor as the position of the sun changes relative to the sensor throughout the day, which raised concerns about how this would affect measurements and potentially the Guardian’s calculated daily light integral (DLI) totals.

Further concerns were also raised about the strength and girth of the original mounting cables designed alongside the Guardian. These concerns prompted thicker cables to be sourced, which solved the weight issue, but cast thicker shadows, raising the same concerns for PAR measurements and DLI calculations.

The purpose of this experiment was to assess the influence of the shadows cast by the thinner original wires versus the new thicker mounting cables on DLI totals calculated by the Guardian. This experiment was conducted by John Huber, an Apogee technical support specialist.

Materials and Methods:

Two model SM-500 Guardian greenhouse monitoring systems were mounted to a tripod on the rooftop of the Apogee Instruments building in Logan, Utah. The Guardians were mounted on poles that were oriented in a south-facing direction to prevent the mounting equipment from casting shadows onto the Guardians’ PAR sensors. One of the SM-500 Guardians was mounted with 0.75 mm diameter cables, while the other was mounted with 2.00 mm diameter cables for the test. One SQ-500-SS PAR sensor was also mounted to the mast of the same tripod and oriented south to serve as a reference sensor. All three sensors were connected to a Campbell Scientific CR1000X datalogger set to record PAR data from all three sensors at 10 second intervals and to log averaged data every 1 minute. The system was left running on the rooftop for roughly seven days to collect data from both overcast and clear sky days. 

After data collection, PAR readings were calibrated to the reference to compensate for minor calibration differences between the SM-500s. Three cloud-free days and three very overcast days were then selected from the entire dataset, and PAR values were converted into DLI totals for each sensor for these days. The DLI totals calculated from the Guardian readings were then compared against the reference sensor readings.

Results:

Normalized DLI values do show a trend related to the thickness of the mounting cables. Both Guardian DLI readings were lower than the reference (gray data), with the thicker cable model (green data) being the lowest of the three. This difference is minimal, however, coming in at less than 5 % overall from the reference, with the thick cable variant DLI totals averaging between 4 and 4.5 % lower and the thin cable variant (red data) DLI totals coming in at 1 to 1.5 % lower.

Conclusion:

This test shows that the thickness of the cable mounts does affect measured DLI totals as measured by the Guardian, but this effect is less than 5 %. Overall, the effect of both the thinner and thicker cable mounts can be considered negligible in greenhouse environments where obstructions from the greenhouse structure are expected to have a much larger effect on measured DLI totals than the mounting cables.

Click here to download the PDF version of this case study.

Do you know the difference between tipping gauges and weighing precipitation gauges?

Tipping gauges were traditionally used to measure precipitation due to their comparatively lower cost. However, as technology has progressed in the precipitation monitoring sphere, many limitations of the tipping buckets have become apparent. Most people are therefore transitioning to the more accurate weighing gauges.

While tipping bucket gauges can be used to measure solid precipitation, they require a heated funnel to melt the snow. This creates a problem, as power for the heater is often difficult or impossible to supply at many field sites. Weighing gauges can measure solid precipitation without the need for heating, although inlet heaters can be used to prevent snow capping.

In addition to being preferred for hail and snowfall, weighing gauges are more accurate for measuring all forms of precipitation, particularly at high rates. Maximum rate specifications for tipping bucket gauges are 12-20 mm per minute (720-1200 mm per hour) and the uncertainty of the measurement is often unspecified beyond 8 mm per minute. Conversely, maximum rate specifications for weighing gauges are in the range of 30 to 120 mm per minute (1800-7200 mm per hour) and uncertainty is specified across the entire measurement range.

Weighing gauges can also measure smaller amounts of precipitation. Depending on the model, tipping bucket gauges require 0.1 to 0.25 mm of precipitation to trigger a tip of the bucket, in addition to the precipitation needed to wet the funnel. Weighing gauges are more sensitive and events as low as 0.025 to 0.05 mm can be detected.

Weighing gauges are becoming more popular because of their many advantages over tipping bucket gauges, particularly in regions with mixed or solid precipitation. While weighing gauges do tend to be more expensive, the price is offset by their better accuracy and precision.

After years of research, field testing, and refinement, Apogee Instruments is excited to release our new Cloudburst weighing precipitation gauge later this year!

The Apogee Cloudburst is the ultimate weighing precipitation gauge for accurately measuring total precipitation from rain, snow, sleet, and hail. With a rugged, large capacity measurement bucket, this all-weather weighing gauge is built to last years in the field. The Cloudburst matches the research-quality measurements of competing gauges at a lower cost, promising you the best results for the best price.

To learn more about the Cloudburst, check out Apogee’s article from earlier this year in the Meteorological Technology International magazine .

Apogee's revolutionary sensors are about to take a giant leap forward. NASA is currently testing our quantum and ePAR sensors, pyrgeometers, pyranometers, and infrared radiometers in a rigorous vacuum and vibration test to ensure the sensors can withstand the extreme conditions of space flight and rocket launch.

But did you know this is not the first time Apogee sensors have gone to space? Twenty years ago our sensors were used on the International Space Station to monitor USU-Apogee Wheat growth from April to June 2003. Our sensors have only improved over the last 20 years, and we are excited to have our sensors go to space again. Learn more about this crop developed by Utah State University and Apogee's founder Dr. Bruce Bugbee on USU's website.

In 2023, as seen in the images below, Apogee models SU-200-SS (ultraviolet sensor), SQ-100X-SS (original x quantum sensor), SP-510-SS (upward-looking thermopile pyranometer), SL-610-SS (downward-looking pyrgeometer), SQ-500-SS (quantum sensor), SP-110-SS (silicon-cell pyranometer), SI-111-SS (infrared radiometer), SL-510-SS (upward-looking pyrgeometer), and SQ-610-SS (ePAR sensor) are all being tested for space readiness.

While the testing is ongoing, Apogee is excited to apply what we learn from the results. Put your trust in Apogee and know our rugged sensors are constantly undergoing improvements to ensure they withstand even your most extreme growing or measurement environments!