Seed Projects

This project aims to develop research facilities for agrivoltaic production systems and determine their impact on the yield, marketability, nutritional quality, shelf-life and safety of vegetable crops. We expect to grow cool- and warm-season crops with shorter statures and management requirements that may be conducive to agrivoltaic production. Replicated trials will be conducted at the KSU Olathe Horticulture Research and Extension Center (OHREC) within established "systems" research plots that compare high tunnel and open-field production. Currently, six replications exist for each system. Three of the replications in the open-field will be randomly assigned and designated for agrivoltaic production. Cool-season crops such as lettuce, spinach and kale will be planted in the spring and fall, as we have seen dramatically lower light quantity in the fall (Gude et al., 2020). Warm-season crops such as: zuccchini, cucumbers, melons and beans will be planted in May and harvested through the summer. Microclimate data including soil and air temperature, soil moisture, light quantity and spectral quality, and UV will be recorded. Yield and marketability will be determined based on the crop and in accordance with protocols already in place at the OHREC. Produce grown at the OHREC will be transported to the KSU-Olathe campus for postharvest analysis. Postharvest measurements will include visual, organoleptic and nutritional quality as well as shelf-life.

The second objective of this study is to develop preliminary data to determine the economic ramifications of incorporating agrivoltaics for urban and small-scale growers. Enterprise budgets for the two most successful crops grown in the agrivoltaic production systems will be developed in year 3 based on data collected and experience from the trials described above. Enterprise budgets that address different crops as well as structural and maintenance costs have been developed for high tunnels and we expect to take a similar approach. Fixed costs (structural and maintenance) are annualized and combined with crop-specific enterprise (annual) budgets to determine a total operating cost and benefit. With these budgets we can utilize partial budget methodology to identify how the production of revenue from energy impacts the profitability of the production system. Likewise, we expect to determine how the yield of the produce crops affects profitability when revenue from energy production is stable. Another important question is cash flow and the rate of return on investment from the solar structures and how the size/scale of the solar arrays affect the economic feasibility. Major milestones for this project include: establishing the agrivoltaics system, data collection (economic, production, quality and shelf-life), and preliminary data- determine the effect of the agrivoltaics production system.

Project Team

• Cary Rivard, professor and extension specialist, horticulture and natural resources
• Logan Britton, assistant professor, agricultural economics
• Eleni Pliakoni, professor, horticulture and natural resources
• Manreet Bhullar, research assistant professor, horticulture and natural resources
• Ganga Hettiarachchi, professor, agronomy
• Tricia Jenkins, teaching assistant professor, School of Applied and Interdisciplinary Studies
• Alexander Thill, master's student, horticulture with an emphasis in urban food systems

The overarching goal of this mini-project is to adapt a novel electrocoagulation-based nutrient (N & P) recovery platform downstream of an Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor (AnMBR) treating municipal wastewater (Task 1) and to tailor the Recovered Nutrient Products (RNP) to be a sustainable alternative to conventional fertilizers, while simultaneously generating water for indirect reuse in the same urban farm (Task 2). Team members Parameswaran and Hettiarachchi have extensive experience collaborating on the topic of sustainable nutrient recovery (ammonia and phosphorus-based fertilizer products) from wastewaters and evaluation of its beneficial reuse potential (Gamage et al., 2021; Heronemus et al., 2021). The AnMBR technology platform simultaneously achieves recovery of energy (as biogas), nutrient products (N & P based) and water for reuse, and the PI has demonstrated long term operations treating municipal wastewater (Lim et al., 2019; 2020). Team member Pourkargar will also develop a physics-informed machine learning predictive modeling framework for the proposed wastewater nutrient recovery system. The computational model will then be used to optimize the nutrient recovery experiments, which is typically cost-prohibitive and time-consuming. This proposed research leverages the unique, multidisciplinary advancements Pourkargar has made in the areas of computational multiscale modeling of physico-chemical systems, machine learning, process control, and optimization (Pourkargar et al., 2019; Moharir et al., 2018). He also has extensive research and development experience in automation and intelligent manufacturing in the energy and biomanufacturing industries.

Recovered nutrient products from the City of Manhattan's wastewater will be treated using a bench scale AnMBR. The nutrient products will be characterized and studied for bioavailability through soil testing (soils obtained from urban farms) and appropriate cropping system in greenhouses. The potential for stabilization of known urban contaminants such as lead (Pb) will also be studied. Nutrient recovery efficiency will be altered to produce water for indirect reuse and potentially available for hydroponics/aquaculture applications at the Olathe campus (Bhullar Produce Safety Lab). Data generated from the resource recovery platform and its beneficial reuse will be available for quantifying the uncertainty in predicting nutrient recovery and bioavailability of the recovered products. This allows for a data-assisted approach that will help optimize nutrient recovery, reduce environmental impact, and promote sustainable agriculture practices. During year 3, results from the two preceding years will be used to design and execute a field study at an urban farm to measure the mobility of potential trace contaminants in soil amendments, such as PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), the bioavailability of urban soil contaminants, and the nutritional quality and yield of produce from plots that were amended with locally-available compost vs. AnMBR derived RNPs and inorganic fertilizer. Team members Pliakoni and Jenkins will assist with produce quality assessment at the Postharvest Physiology Lab in Olathe, Kansas. Major milestones for this project include: efficient recovery of nutrients and water for reuse from municipal wastewater in AnMBRs, Tailored recovery of waste derived fertilizer products and its subsequent beneficial reuse for soil-plant systems and Modeling and life cycle assessment.

Project Team

• Parthap Parameswaran, associate professor, civil engineering
• Ganga Hettiarachchi, professor, agronomy
• Majid Jaberi-Douraki, associate professor, mathematics
• Davood B. Pourkargar, assistant professor, chemical engineering
• Tricia Jenkins, teaching assistant professor, School of Applied and Interdisciplinary Studies
• Eleni Pliakoni, professor, horticulture and natural resources
• Nick McKee-Rist, master's student, civil engineering

Team members Bhullar and Yang have expertise in applying non-thermal UV-C lighting for agricultural water treatment and are currently evaluating the feasibility of using UV-C intervention to safeguard the safety of the hydroponic production systems (KSU Global Food Systems Seed Grant Award 2022). Preliminary findings from their research have shown that UV-C light can effectively reduce the microbial load in the nutrient water by more than 2 logs using a commercially available UV device. The next step and goal for this project will be to evaluate a proposed modified water treatment approach that combines physical filtration with microbial reduction using UV light technologies for wastewater re-use in a hydroponic system. The objectives of this experiment are to 1.) validate the effectiveness of filtration-UV-C treatment in facilitating water reuse in hydroponic lettuce production and 2.) evaluate the lettuce yield, water/nutrient use efficiency, and postharvest quality of the lettuce from an on-farm greenhouse experiment using the filtration-UV-C treatment.

In the first 1.5 years of the project, a commercially available physical filtration/UV-C system (Sanitron models S37C and S2400C) will be tested on the wastewater from an experimental-scale hydroponic system in the Bhullar Food Safety Lab in Olathe, KS. While growing lettuce, the water will be inoculated with rifampicin-resistant generic E. coli and enumerated on tryptic soy agar + rifampicin. Before and after the wastewater treatment, the following water quality parameters will be tested: turbidity, Electrical Conductivity (EC), pH, absorbance, transmittance, and presence of generic E. coli. Various flow rates will be tested to find the ideal rate for treating agricultural wastewater in the greenhouse experiment. In the second 1.5 years of the project, an on-farm greenhouse experiment will be performed at OHREC. This experiment will use a mid-sized teaching hydroponic system and implement the water treatment approach identified in the lab-based evaluation in a larger-scale system. The Yang research team will gather comprehensive data on lettuce physiology, yield, and environmental benefits, including improved water and nutrient use efficiency. Team members Pliakoni and Jenkins will also evaluate the lettuce quality, nutrition, and shelf-life from this experiment in the Postharvest Physiology Lab in Olathe.

The findings of this study will contribute to the knowledge base for improving the safety and environmental sustainability of hydroponic production. The preliminary data generated by this project can lead to a larger production-scale assessment of the filtration/UV-C treatment in both hydroponic and aquaponic growing systems to improve their safety, sustainability, and economic feasibility. Major milestones for this project include: optimize experimental setup and design (filtration-UV treatment design, UV devices, treatment times, etc.). Collect and analyze data, and write and submit manuscript(s). Duration of the project is three years.

Project Team

• Manreet Bhullar, research assistant professor, horticulture and natural resources
• Eleni Pliakoni, professor, horticulture and natural resources
• Tricia Jenkins, teaching assistant professor, School of Applied and Interdisciplinary Studies
• Millicent Tetteh, master's student, horticulture and natural resources witn an emphasis in urban food systems

Arthropod communities within production systems vary depending on location: whether they are situated within the interior of city limits (urban), along city edges (peri-urban) and rural areas. This is because mobile insects such as pests and beneficial arthropods use multiple sensory cues to detect host plants which can vary depending on the background cues from the environment. These cues can be environmental barriers to movement, and/or management practices utilized in the system. Variability in insect biodiversity can affect important arthropod-derived ecosystem services such as pest suppression, pollination, and decomposition. Team member T. Kim has research expertise in plant-insect interactions and biodiversity patterns. She is currently working with Rivard and a current UFS MS graduate student who is a professor at Johnson County Community College (JCCC) to develop this project.

We will compare arthropods communities (both harmful and beneficial) in urban, peri- urban, and rural farms to determine whether farm location and surrounding landscape type affect insect biodiversity and ecosystem services. Furthermore, we will collaborate with team member Kashem, faculty in Landscape Architecture and Regional & Community Planning, to develop GIS maps that allow for spatial analysis of the data. The survey will focus on crops that are grown in each farm type, economically important, and subjected to insect pressure and that rely on pollination services (e.g., cucurbits, tomatoes, strawberry). We will survey insects using a variety of sampling techniques including sticky cards, pitfall traps, and timed plant observations. We will assess ecosystem services such as pest suppression services using sentinel prey (frozen eggs and insect larva), pollination services (time plant observations and crop yield), and decomposition (litter bags). We expect biodiversity and ecosystem services to be greatest in systems with greater crop diversity, refuges within and surrounding managed fields, and fields with reduced chemical inputs. Major milestones for this project include: field collection data, process samples, workshops to students and local farmers. Duration of the project is three years.

Project Team

• Tania Kim, assistant professor, entomology
• Cary Rivard, professor and extension specialist, horticulture and natural resources
• Jeremy Cowan, assistant professor, horticulture and natural resources
• Shakil Bin Kashem, assistant professor, landscape architecture and regional and community planning
• Kaitlin Schieuer, master's student, entomology

Ensuring food and nutrition security is vital for any post-disaster recovery. Natural hazards like floods and tornadoes can disrupt the existing food supply chain and cause short or long-term food insecurity in the disaster-affected areas. It can be particularly problematic for socially vulnerable communities that already have a fragile food system or are located in food deserts. In the global north, grassroots UPA projects often arise during times of crisis (Langmeyer et al., 2021). Scenario planning can help to identify the weaknesses in the local and regional food system and develop strategies to ensure post-disaster food and nutrition security. Currently, Kansas ranks 9th in federal disaster declarations. Team member Kashem and H Kim recently received a Research and Education Innovation (REI) award from Kansas EPSCoR and are collaborating with EPSCoR RII Track-1 project titled "Adaptive and Resilient Infrastructures driven by Social Equity (ARISE)." The ARISE research team is working to improve equity in disaster resilience from threats pertinent to Kansas.

The overall goal of this project is to model and improve the resiliency of urban food systems during and after disasters. This study will develop a modeling framework for scenarios planning at the local level that can be employed as a planning tool by local city planners and emergency managers. The modeling framework will be based on the Interdependent Networked Community Resilience Modeling Environment (IN-CORE) developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) funded Center for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning. IN-CORE is open source, and it can be used to develop a risk-based approach to decision-making that enables quantitative comparisons of alternative resilience strategies. For scenario planning, data on local food system components (e.g., sources, stores, supply chain network, etc.) will be incorporated in the IN-CORE platform and different flood and tornado scenarios will be tested to evaluate how any extreme weather events can disrupt the existing food system. Data generated by the team members in Obj. 1, such as food production from UPA sites, will be incorporated into the IN-CORE platform. After developing a prototype framework, local planners and emergency managers will be invited to a workshop to test the initial scenarios, identify any alternative hazard scenarios, identify the weaknesses in the local food system, and ways to make the tool easily accessible for local city planning and emergency response. This project directly aligns with the SAS long-term goal to improve food and nutrition security by building resilient regional food systems. Major milestones for this project include: collecting data, initial model setup, scenario development, testing, finalizing the model.

Project Team

• Shakil Bin Kashem, assistant professor, landscape architecture and regional and community planning
• Hande McGinty, assistant professor, computer science
• Hyung Jin Kim, associate professor, landscape architecture and regional and community planning
• Shadadat Hossain, master's student, landscape architecture and regional and community planning

Food insecurity and lack of equitable access to healthy food are more challenging issues in disinvested areas with low-income communities, demonstrating lower life expectancy, quality of life and wellbeing. Team member Hadavi has conducted a pilot study with her graduate student on food insecurity and has developed an approach to identify vulnerable neighborhoods with potential for food system development and explore residents' food insecurity and food preferences in Kansas City. This study has also proposed a food insecurity index based on residents' food choices, food accessibility and affordability. This pilot study serves as a precedent for conducting this proposed seed project. Team member Kashem's prior research on urban social vulnerability (Kashem et al. 2016) will also contribute to the methodological approach for this study. This project aims to expand on those prior works by studying food vulnerability within urban neighborhoods of Kansas. This project has two major goals to address food vulnerability; a) examine healthy food accessibility in low-income and disinvested neighborhoods of Kansas urban centers to identify most food-vulnerable areas, and b) identify areas with opportunities for developing healthy food systems or resources in low-income areas.

GIS mapping and spatial analysis will be used to achieve these goals. For example, to identify food-vulnerable areas, data layers of income, life expectancy, redlining, convenience stores, grocery stores, fast-food locations, community gardens, farmers' markets and public transportation will be overlayed to distinguish areas that have highest accessibility to healthy food as opposed to areas identified as food swamps (high density of unhealthy food options). To identify potential for food system development in most food-vulnerable areas, the maps developed in the first step will be overlayed with data layers of land use, vacancy, prime farmland soil and existing gardens, schools and other educational institutions, community centers and other datasets that would be identified as useful during the spatial analysis. Information from seed projects 1, 2, 4, and 7 will also be incorporated in this study to better identify the most appropriate locations for different food production types.

The identified areas with potential for sustainable food system development will serve as the basis for allocating resources to establish such systems to tackle food insecurity among vulnerable communities. The project goals and expected outcomes are in line with the AFRI SAS priorities by identifying food insecurity among vulnerable communities and providing proposals for development of shorter food supply chains which will contribute to equitable food access. Major milestones for this project include: data collection, thematic mapping and network analysis, identifying food vulnerability and opportunity zones for food system development. Duration of the project two years.

Project Team

• Priscilla Brenes, extension assistant professor, agricultural economics
• Logan Britton, assistant professor, agricultural economics
• Shakil Bin Kashem, assistant professor, landscape architecture and regional and community planning
• Maria Erdish, master's student, landscape architecture and regional and community planning

In recent years, climate change and acute, catastrophic events have impacted our communities and their food systems. These events have put a spotlight on the importance of resilient community food systems. Cities need methods to assess their food system resilience to devise solutions for improving food security in the face of disasters and stressors. The North American Food Systems Network developed the "Community and Agriculture Resilience Audit Tool", also known as CARAT, for that exact purpose.

For this study we are piloting the use of the CARAT to assess Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas, and examining how they're utilizing the assets of their local food systems to enhance resilience by conducting searches of public websites, hosting focus groups and performing interviews.

CARAT measures the resources in a food system by looking at 101 indicators that fall under seven core themes. These seven core themes are: 1) Natural Resource Management, 2) Community Health and Well-Being, 3) Community Self-Reliance in Food, 4) Distributed and Democratic Leadership, 5) Focus on Local Farmers, Food Processors, and the Food Distributors, 6) Food Sovereignty and 7) Place based Economics.

This project has three main goals: 1) provide baseline information on how Kansas City, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri, utilize the assets of their local food system to achieve community resilience 2) discover and describe key similarities and differences in the two food systems and how they relate to community food resilience and 3) identify the steps that can increase community resilience and present those results to the city, county and community.

Project Team

• Tricia Jenkins, teaching assistant professor, School of Applied and Interdisciplinary Studies
• Dustin Kohn, master's student, horticulture with an emphasis in urban food systems