Institute of Vegetable and Floriculture Science, NARO

Greenhouse horticulture is a fast-developing agricultural field in the 21^st century with the improvement of IoT and AI technologies. Not only the agricultural industry, but also the wider industrial world has high expectations for leading technologies that will contribute to sustainable agricultural production and food security.
Our group is studying data-driven greenhouse production systems based on models that simulate plant growth and yield, and is developing new greenhouse environment control technologies using sensing devices and AI. One of our goals is to control the yield and fruit/vegetable quality balance through these systems and technologies. In addition, molecular mechanisms of physiological disorders and fruit sugar content are analyzed based on the traits of cultivars, genetics, genomic information and transcriptomes to establish high-yield, high-quality production throughout the year. We are also analyzing the effects of organic fertilizers in hydroponics to reduce disease and developing new sterilization technologies using bivalent iron materials and photocatalysis.
Through these projects, we will help increase production efficiency and profitability by establishing high-yield, stable greenhouse production, reducing labor and energy consumption, minimizing the use of pesticides, quantitatively controlling functional ingredients, and improving product quality.