S5: Episode 3: Krishna Bhattarai - Producing the Future of Crops

Krishna Bhattarai is an Assistant Professor of Controlled Environment Plant Breeding at Texas 
A&M AgriLife Research and the Department of Horticultural Sciences, Texas A&M University, 
based in Dallas, Texas. He leads the Breeding for Controlled Environments program, focused on developing CEA-optimized cultivars through genetic discovery, high-throughput phenotyping, and genome-informed breeding to improve productivity, resilience, and profitability in controlled environment agriculture systems. 

His program integrates germplasm development, trait dissection, and cultivar improvement across multiple horticultural crops, with active collaboration with industry and public partners. Prior to joining Texas A&M AgriLife, he held roles as Junior Breeder in processing tomato at Enza Zaden, Postdoctoral Researcher in strawberry breeding at UC Davis, and Postdoctoral Associate and Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Florida, where he also completed his Ph.D. in Environmental Horticulture. He earned an M.S. in Horticultural Science from North Carolina State University and a B.Sc. in Agriculture from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. His research is supported by competitive extramural funding, teaching activities, 18 peer-reviewed journal articles, 2 book chapters, 1 editorial, and numerous scientific abstracts and presentations. He also contributes to graduate training, professional service, and industry engagement to advance sustainable horticultural production systems globally and internationally.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Alohi, welcome to Horticulture Innovators, the podcast series where we will explore impactful innovations in horticulture. I'm Ahmed Dingra, your host. I'm a professor and head of the Department of Horticultural Sciences at Texas A University. In each episode, we'll explore the inspiring stories of the pioneers who are contributing to sustainability, wellness, and food security through their amazing work in horticulture. How are you? Welcome to another episode of Horticulture Innovators. What if we could grow our favorite fruits and vegetables year-round with scalability and efficiency? What can we achieve with that? Well, to answer this question today, I have as my guest Dr. Krishna Bhattaray. He is an assistant professor in the Department of Horticultural Sciences and a scientist at the Dal Sacro Life Texas and University System Center. And today he's going to answer some of these questions because he's working at the forefront of controlled environment production of horticultural crops. Welcome, Krishna. Thank you so much, and thank you for having me here.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

So controlled environment horticulture, what is it? So controlled environment horticulture is a system of growing horticultural crops and protected uh systems where you can modify the growing conditions. Uh it can be either at the very high level, like you see in the high-tech greenhouses or vertical farms, or it can be at the very low-tech level where you are modifying the temperature like by using weight wall in the low-tech greenhouses, or even few degrees of temperature in high tunnel and shade houses where you are using either 70% aluminate or 30% aluminate. So it can range, it has a wide range of uh method growing growing the plants.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

So do you think indoor farming where people are putting these vertical sort of farms inside like buildings also are part of control environment?

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Yes, actually, use of warehouses uh in urban centers like Houston or Dallas, uh that were that where may could be not being used or that were actually built for those production, those actually come under control environments as well.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

And that really piques my curiosity is what about space? I mean, when we're producing plants in those controlled environments and space modules, isn't that also a controlled environment?

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Wait, that's absolutely correct. Because uh in space, as far as we know, we don't have any conducive environment that we can grow plants as of now. There may be one, we don't know in the future, right? But until now, um everything that we will be growing in space would be in a highly regulated control environment system.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

So yeah, horticulture is everywhere, isn't it? It is. We are two people who are biased about it, so that's that's great. So uh this is really exciting. Uh, we're gonna talk a lot about control environment, but I want to also understand how did you get involved in control environment horticulture and what brought you to do this?

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yeah, I think I'm gonna start. I should start with how I started loving plants. Yeah, absolutely. So uh when I was growing up in a rural part, back then it was a rural uh area in Nepal. My dad, being a veterinary tech, he knew about plants. And unlike my our neighbors, he was always growing at least a crop all year round in our kitchen garden, right? There was a corn standing always because we don't get freeze there where I grew up. So you could actually grow corn all year round, yeah, but it was very seasonal to rest up on my neighbors. Okay. So that's where I actually got started getting very fascinated. How does my father do that? And it my interest more got into a precise level when I started my agriculture degree, my undergrad degree in agriculture, uh in Nepal. And we got, I was very lucky that we got an opportunity to visit our national wheat research program where the breeders were actually working on developing Uganda 99 stem rust uh disease resistance suite. They had two lines, weight lines that were very resistant, that's so the enhanced level of resistance, and they were actually awarded uh a cement prize later on. So understanding that actually got me really fascinated to it. Uh I I came to the US after that uh and did my uh master's at North Carolina State University in tomato breeding program, okay, where we made crosses in the greenhouses. Yeah. But also grew tomatoes out in the field. Yeah. Uh in my PhD, I work with ornamental plants. And as you know, um most of the ornamental industry is in some sort of controlled environmental structure, like I mentioned before, shade house, greenhouse, um, or even uh vertical farms, right? And that's actually helped me develop this and my interest into agriculture and controlled, as if I was being prepared for this, right? Yeah, yeah. And in my post archive at UC Davis, I used on strawberry, I worked on strawberry genomics. So that's where my expertise on fruits uh you know developed. Everybody asked the question is tomato a fruit or a vegetable? Yeah, that's uh it's it's botanically a fruit. Okay, but the way it is grown, it is produced, it's actually a vegetable. Yeah, exactly. Um and you can you can say that about watermelon as well, because we were working on a proposal on watermelon, and somebody who did not have the background actually mentioned when I wrote watermelon as a vegetable, they were mentioning all my life I was thinking it as a fruit. I have to explain that it although it is a fruit, it is grown out in the field as a row crop. So the production system is makes it as a vegetable.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Anything with a seed is a fruit, but yeah, how you produce it. Um so this is great. So this is a great sort of uh segue to my next question. So during this process, you were already seeing the importance of controlled environment, uh, how it's really uh enabling research and development of new crops.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Yeah, controlled environment actually has been always used, and we will we can we can discuss how it has evolved from the ancient others, right? But what I want to highlight is that beyond this, CA breeding has actually significantly helped in developing other crops as well. For example, you see rice breeding here here in Texas AM, uh, you can see tomato breeding. Most of the breeding work is actually happening in the lab or in the greenhouse. The only thing that we do out in in field for breeding is seam production, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

So you can you can see the importance of CEA uh in improving crops very exclusively.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

You know, we've talked about this earlier. I think when it comes to production, most of the production involves breeding could be called CEA. But production is primarily horticulture crops. So I think we we've we we've talked about should we call it controlled environment horticulture or should we dilute it by calling it CEA?

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Uh absolutely. And and I cannot I cannot agree more with you on this, is as you if you see the production, the crops that are being grown right now in controlled environment systems, it's 100%. Yeah, yeah. Horticultural crops, you can so if you look at the stats, 70% of the crop that is grown in controlled environment systems are actually tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumbers. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

So what what are these some other crops that are being already been grown in controlled environments?

SPEAKER_01 8:46

So we have a significant portion of ornamentals, okay, yeah. That are grown in the greenhouses. Shade houses or high tunnels or something. Yeah, yeah. And also the greenhouses, yeah, because you see these hydrancyas, great looking high tens. They they are actually grown in in control environment in the greenhouse systems, right? You have you have lots of vegetables, you have strawberries grown there. Uh right now, the prime industry, the premium industry for microgreens, yeah, it's exclusively controlled environments and this basket vertical.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Yeah, this is interesting, and I think let's expand this a little bit more as well. You know, uh for someone outside of our field, you know, we understand we are arguing about controlled environment agriculture and controlled environment horticulture. But people from outside of the world, you know, why do we need these things? What is the problem that is being solved with utilizing these controlled environment production systems?

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Yeah, we have to we have to really zoom out and then see the broader picture to understand this. Yes. And first, let let me let me highlight, and I think this is where uh uh we can visit how it has evolved, yes. It has been it has been it is being done. So if you see the trend, one thing everyone keeps talking about is the is the growing conditions out in the field, emergence of diseases, right? Yeah, so because of that, um we need alternative production system. Now I have to be very clear on this that open field production system has always been there, and it is never going to be completely replaced by controlled environment production system, because if you see open field production is the cheapest method of growing crops. Yes. But unfortunately, the growing conditions are not as it used to be before. Yes, yes. That that is the main driving force. But also the trend, the anthropozenic factors you see in in the ancient times when the population density was increasing in the urban areas, you felt the the the human the society felt the need for growing crops locally. And it will it existed in the past and it has it it is now being um demanded in a further larger voice. Yeah. Uh so being in the present context, being able to grow crops in the urban centers is also uh very important. Yeah. You don't as you see now, 90% of the lettuce is being produced in open field in California or in my valley in Arizona, right? But having the lettuce growers here controlling environment lettuce growers here in Texas has significantly reduced the transportation food mined. Now that helps us in environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and also be able to make Texas or local regions food uh independent on the food reliance, right? So those are the need why we need to produce local. It also comes with the freshness because we have uh commercial CEA lettuce growers in Dallas or Houston who can actually deliver the lettuce currents within 24 hours in the selves of Walmart and Whole Foods. Now imagine how much freshness that would deliver. We're talking of just about lettuce, but think about other fruit crops like tomatoes. Um, the ability to test the freshness, the ability to preserve the uh get access to the nutrition at the freshness. So those are the things I could highlight the need for control the environment horticulture.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Well, that's wonderful. So let's uh dive a little bit deeper into your work. Uh as an assistant professor and a scientist uh in this space. What are you working on and what are the innovations you're seeking? Uh thank you.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

That's a that's a great question. And how I started, it I would like to tell you an amazing story. Two months into my program, yeah. Um Dr. Joe Masavni, our uh C Control of the Environmental Horticulture Extension faculty member, was organizing a conference at the Dallas Center. Yes. Um, I got introduced to uh CA grower there, local CA grower there. Next day he gives me a call saying, Hey, can you come and look check out my plants? Because my plants are not doing well. And we have been struggling to uh manage the problem, whatever it is, I have no idea. So uh on Monday I go visit the farm, and what I see is it's all covered with powdery melting. All of the lettuce plants are covered with powdery melting. Yeah, so I am working as a plan reader, I am working on solving the issues, current issues that the growers are facing, right? And I'll give you some examples on that. But also, we are working towards solving future problems that we foresee will be. Uh, some of the current challenges that the CA growers are facing uh are uh abiotic and biotic stresses. Who would have thought that by abiotic stress would be a challenge to just for the general audience?

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Abiotic is all the environmental challenges which do not involve any fungi, bacteria, or insects. Any living organism. Yeah, let's just want to clarify that.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Yeah, to simplify, um let's say temperature. So lettuce cannot grow in the temperatures higher than 25 degrees Celsius. Yeah, um, however, if you look at the temperature of Houston or Dallas in summer, it's rarely if we can breed a lettuce plant that can withstand the temperature of 27 or 30 degrees Celsius, imagine how much less etchback system they would have to. Um, so one of one of the examples is that the second example is again, oh what what I talked about, the powdery mildew disease. Now, that this fungal disease, powdery milk, is not very specific to lettuce, it's actually driven by the environmental foundations that are favorite for the right. So it can happen in most of the crops that we grow in controlled environments. You can name it peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, strawberries. And in some of these, we don't know what the controls are besides spraying chemicals. Now, if you are a C controlled environment uh horticultural grower, you really don't want to spray chemicals because uh these systems are going towards or aspire to be organic producers. So it reduces cost. Absolutely. It reduces cost. And so we are also working on developing resistance to these diseases and challenges, but also we we foresee, we try to see what I'm my lab is trying to see is what are the problems that in in a global perspective and what could be the problem in the future. And now I would like to give you an example. Right now, with the global trend of less availability of human labor is very high, irrespective of the industry. Right. And uh California, the open field production of California is facing it, uh, control environment systems of data is facing it. Um and we want to integrate, we want to develop plans that actually fit in the system where we can develop, we can redesign the system to make it more friendly towards automation, friendly towards having less interventions uh of human beings. So the system remains as sterile as possible, as mechanized as possible, so we can streamline the corruption process in the delivering process.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

So those are the things that we are trying to. So you mentioned about diseases as well as temperature or environmental conditions because they go right now. Isn't it true that all the varieties of lettuces or strawberries or tomatoes were primarily developed through breeding for open field production, and now we're trying to grow them internal indoors. Um and that that really creates a challenge, of course.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Most. I would say most of the varieties. Uh the reason I'm saying most is because the industry is far ahead of developing uh crops for uh controlled systems. Okay. Uh there are companies, especially in Europe, who have already developed some lettuce cultivars.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

So, what kind of innovations have they been able to bring in the genetics that allows them to grow uh successfully indoors? Yeah. So or in controlled environments.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

So the innovations that they have really done is the ability to be grown in hyperponic system, ability to be grown in that very compact space. Yeah. If you see the lettuce production system in indoor production or vertical farm, you are growing 11 cycles of lettuce in a year. In a year, wow, yes. In that space.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

It's like a 45-day cycle sometimes or 30 days, even less like around 40 days at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

It's it's yeah, yeah. You are looking, you are harvesting, you are not letting the plant grow beyond 30 days, I would say. So the the fast pace of the industry in utilizing the small space and utilizing the unconventional system.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Question about nutrition. I mean, I know we think about fruits and vegetables giving us a lot of nutrition. So, what about these plants that are grown so rapidly? Do they have do they have the nutrition?

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Um the lab analysis show the the con nutritional content is there. But the question is, what what are what would be the factor that would be undesirable? Although they have the nutrition, right? So that's where uh we are also my lab is also working on. For example, we tend to see more T burn in lettuce when we grow inside the indoor farms or vertical farms, right? So that's where we are actually working on. We are trying to select against T burn or develop, make crosses, and bring those genetics that help those plants thrive in there. But nutritionally, you don't you don't see you don't see any differences. There is another aspect associated, is a lot of research has been done on post-harvest of these of these fruits and uh vegetables that are grown.

SPEAKER_02 20:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

But we have to also bring in the equation that these are in the selves within 24 hours. Yeah. So where post-harvest or self-life is a question for open field, that factor does not make at the priority level in country for control environment crops as it does for open field production.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

So this is really a good time to start thinking about, you know, what what new innovations as as this controlled environment production piece starts going? So let's say you've developed a disease-resistant cultivars, you've uh developed something that can have a rapid growth cycle as well. Uh, what type of innovations do you think will really make it practical, uh scalable, and economical? Because we keep hearing about all these controlled environment companies who do indoor farming or greenhouse production. You know, they in App Harvest, for example, was one, or the companies, you know, uh Aerofarms, etc. I mean, what's the reason that they were rather than scaling and becoming global, they had to shrink?

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Yeah, so actually there was a recent uh report where they highlighted a point which I really liked. Before um when C control environment actually was really taking um progress expanding, it was driven by more capital investments and less of a return. of investment uh equation but with all these shrinkage what we are really seeing is economics and return of investment is actually driving the industry now which I am really hell happy about um one of the reasons is because now we have more plant production uh uh input uh growing going into the production system as you can see before capital ventures and all these um companies that did not have um a lot of experience on growing crops were investing however the plant aspect was not at that level where it was being addressed yeah but with when the return of investment started coming up coming into the into the equation into the scenario now everyone started asking that question we have been investing in this for 10 years now five years now three years now but we are not able to make any profit so where do we go from here unfortunately some of the companies that didn't have the answer of that question uh either had to close or are sinking but the there are growers who were able to answer that and those growers are actually thriving in the industry trying to or at least trying to thrive and make the profit and make it economically sustainable because after all this is a this is all done for economics for the return for a grower for the return economic return for for the uh company as well so those are the things that helped the in the industry or or f key key players for example I can I can give you an example we have uh a vertical farm company called OC and they have they have tomato they have strawberries that they have developed and they are actually expanding we have 80 acres farm that is actually expanding um by also bringing other small farms together but unfortunately we also have some farms that that were closed like you mentioned.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Well I think talking about this I I want to touch back on another topic about health and I wanted to kind of acknowledge the work being done by our colleagues where a collaboration between Dr. Xiu Yang Zhen who is an assistant professor for controlled environment production of horticulture crops and Dr. Bing Wupartel who's the director of the Vegetable Fruit Improvement Center they noticed that by changing light conditions during the production cycle you can actually help in the make the plants accumulate healthful compounds human health as well so that is an exciting aspect which goes beyond what is being grown in a regular cycle so within a 40 day cycle changing light conditions can impact health nutrient because as you know our department's mission is you know the call to action is around sustainability wellness and food security I think you've touched upon all three aspects of course sustainability for us is economic viability first of all and there's the environmental piece there's the very important piece of students I'll come to that in a second but in terms of wellness consuming healthy foods is an important aspect as well and food security you just mentioned that we are not dependent on outside production not just outside of Texas but outside of the US as well so we can produce our own food as well. So this health aspect could also be a selling point I wanted to connect it back to the return on investment piece as well.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Yeah and I think I I did not completely answer your previous question on what are the innovations, right? May I go back to that? Okay so another aspect is that diversity of crops. Like you mentioned uh a little before that what you were wondering what are other crops that are being grown in control environments. Unfortunately I don't have a whole list of diverse crops to give you an answer because we don't we are just limited to horticultural crops and maybe um only a few and one aspect that my program is also working on is towards developing varieties or improving crops that can actually fit in those systems. Because when I joined uh we did a survey on the growers and the number one aspect for the need of C E A to be sustainable diversity of crops being able to grow more crops.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Unfortunately we don't have crops optimized but isn't isn't that controlled by the volume of consumption so if you said lettuce tomatoes uh cucumbers I mean truly these are the most consumed you know you got salads and it it it's like what the pull of demand is as well. As of course you need to if you grew so much of let's say strawberries maybe people can still consume because they're good.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

And that is exactly happening in the lettuce industry because 90% of the sea growers that you see now are growing lettuce right and if everyone keeps growing lettuce and if the market is being saturated the rate of return is low. Yes and that's the reason unfortunately we don't have any highly compact tomato variety that can produce high quality high premium quality fruits right now you can test all the dwarf cultivars that have been developed the BRICS values or the yield is not there yet. Yeah no the the flavor is not there because uh the sugars are not there to you said bricks value I just want to total total soluble salt exactly thank you um so it is not where we want it as compared to the open field tomatoes right and that is where my lab is working on I'm actually working on the nutritional quality of those that you mentioned to enhance those and what that relates to is high premium right like you mentioned if we can leverage if we can harness that phenotypic plasticity the ability to use growing conditions to enhance those trades which would not be expressed in open field that is called phenotypic plasticity if we can harness that through CEA system modifications we would be able the our growers would be able to gain high premium from that and that is that is where the importance of control environment production even in further increases. And so we my lab is trying to breed for diversity uh solve existing and future emerging challenges and also bring in novelty to the system let's go back to the student aspect yes so as a land grant university uh and you mentioned collaborators Dr. Sueang Jin Dr. Vimupatil and there are many others out there at Dallas Center I know that Dr.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

Genoa is working on you Dr.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Niu is working there as well because I am uh in the field of plant breeding I'm actually I say a student with Dr. Suang Jen and we hope to bring in that interaction between the physiological aspect and integrate that into the breeding so we can harness that trait that phenotypic plasticity and take it to another level to bring to bring in the pre uh the pre high premiums right and also Dr. Vimupattel uh VFIC Vegetable and fruit improvement center provides grants so I was lucky to receive a grant from that center and we are actually through that project we are actually trying to find the genetics that control powder mildew resistance in lettuce so we can deliver that trait resistant trait to the industry.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

That's exciting so I think that's that's really I want to do a little bit more of deep dive so you know what's this is production related I know you're doing breeding but obviously it does correlate with each other. What are you using starting to use any decision tools or any kind of sort of sensors to uh accelerate the process of breeding or or or your selection process as well because I think controlled environment production is really conducive to application of these advanced technologies now.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Absolutely so uh one thing I would like to highlight and that is where I think controlled environment system can be really ahead in the game is because we have the opportunity our system has the opportunity to integrate these uh newly emerging techniques either you can you can name it uh technology like AI technology like sensors uh technology also genomic technologies yeah you can easily mount a camera or a sensor in a greenhouse system as compared to open field right and also the the ability to control the conditions and gain very precise and accurate information that really helps us for uh to to do our work so I'm also integrating that we are integrating on the genomics and phenomics side we are integrating metabolomics studies we are inter integrating genomics on the technology side we are including we are integrating we are using farmbot my actually one of my students is currently developing a modified version of farmbot with open access softwares so that we can use that to phenotype the question. So if the Farmbot has a camera that it can go and take pictures automatically or yeah it's a uh we should not say farmbot because it has the copyright okay so um automated platform basically for us what that means is it's a platform where you can mount either a camera or a sensor on the top for example I I'm going to be very visually explaining this. So we have lettuce plans so this machine actually is a rectangular shape it is that way it has wheels mounted and it goes on a platform or if it is on rails or just regular wheels and on the top you can actually mount either sensor or camera so you can pass it along the way just like a boom that is spreads water or fertilizer right so you are taking data from a specific height in the time or interest so you can understand the development of plants in a spatial and temporal platform format. So we are using that to understand the plants and to integrate the growing environmental conditions to leverage so so there is again high growers can get high return.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Yeah. Well this could also be helpful in scouting right in a production system where one person is not going and checking because you can the camera can have different types of modes where you can really select for detecting disease or detecting any kind of disorder pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

Yeah and that is more on the production side and that is already being done it is it is being done at a smaller scale but we already the industry already has the scope how far it can expand to for example you can insert a soil sensor in in a s in a plant or in a uh debucket yeah right so if there is anything off if there is low fertilizer in that the sensor could give an alarm yeah so a robot can go and pick up or remove that plant or remove that uh bucket yeah so you for you prevent the infection you prevent any physiological disorder from in in happening yeah uh let me give you an example uh let's say you are growing strawberry plants in in a vertical format um imagine it is uh 10 10 is uh 10 stairs uh there are ten stairs of of strawberry uh stacked now it it may not be possible for a human eye to climb and see everything and take everything but when you have a camera or a sensor it can pick up if there is a thrips. Yeah I'm giving an example of thrips because it is highly likely that greenhouse conditions may have it. So if there is a thrip infestation they can actually scout the plant and remove that once once the symptom is observed. There was a company in Dallas that was actually modeling lettuce trying to forecast if the tip burn if they can predict tip burn one week or a specific time before the harvest before it sows actually in the in the plant so the idea was to study the signatures what changes before it actually starts sewing up. What that does to a grower is and I'm talking this in the production perspective what that does to a grower is if the Tibburn signatures are sewing up seven days before the harvest they can actually be harvested today and send it to the market. Now because you are selling this within a few days actually that symptom may never appear yeah yeah that's fascinating growers don't even lose their crop yes and there is no harm.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

Yeah exactly exactly no this is really great um if you know one question that you know this is an upcoming field of course and for our Texas uh the horticulture sector is 80 billion dollars we talked about ornamentals 40 billion we got wine 24 billion fruits and vegetables per just like 12 billion you got pecans 2 billion one area the controlled environment horticulture area do we know what's the value of that industry within the state of Texas or the United States?

SPEAKER_01 36:43

That's a great question and to rely we have to rely on some sources and um for these kind of statistics right if uh I can I can give you some stats that we have known uh I have been very actively working on in on understanding this and I have to be um honest about this it's not easy it has not been uh an easy process so we still rely on the information that is available on the on the web that we can gather so in 2019 the economic value of produced goods in CEA was 626 million oh wow okay for the United States yes okay i but I have an uh a positive figure and you can see that in 2025 the total economic contribution of CEA is actually 7 billion oh it's valued at 7 billion yeah so although yeah it's unfortunate that we are seeing some growers shrinking or even setting the door yeah the players that have been in the market are actually expanding and they are doing well yeah that's what is driving the industry well this is an area of growth sorry for the pun but it is the area of growth and it is growing rapidly as well so in the next 10 decades like 2026 let's say 2036 will most of our fruit and vegetable will be produced in controlled environments and available to us all year round I would not say most but we are we will be the way we have been developing the technology we will be growing crops I foresee the way we are we are making progress in this field is that we will see a significant amount of growth in growing crops in in CEA platforms. Now um the the mistakes that was being done five years ago is not there anymore. The industry has learned about it and we have found solutions you can take an example of the phytophthora infestation um that caused the uh a a farm to close right now that is not happening anymore because when I talk with engineers they are we have learned to install the tech valves multiple at multiple locations so each independent unit can be closed. So we are trying to do those interventions from the plant side I am trying to integrate more crops introduce more crops into the system so we we are rapidly expanding on that front yeah so I hope I and and I I'm very I'm I look forward to having that industry that actually will be critical in making each local region self-reliant self-sufficient on these fruits. Yeah I'm very hopeful about it.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Excellent excellent you mentioned students earlier right now we are also trying to train the next generation of leaders who can come into this area and we're also trying to hire additional faculty in the areas of uh artificial intelligence robotics and and so uh you talked about graduate students earlier but undergraduate students are critical and we just have uh been approved to offer a certificate in controlled and uh controlled environment horticulture crop production and actually Dr. Shuyang Zen is leading that uh the question I have for you is what's your message to students who don't know what they're doing, what they want to do everybody wants to go to the three, four major you know professions what do you what what are the prospects in this space for our undergraduates coming and getting degrees uh they may go to grad school or uh industry what what do you think what's your message to them?

SPEAKER_01 40:40

Yeah if if I have to say again labor shortage is is everywhere right and especially the skill levers our industry is is in the need of skill levers because this is not a regular production system this is a modified production system where we want more of skill levers right so we have lots of opportunities in the field I have seen growers who are act we're actually students of plant science now they are trying to get into the business so it's not just coming into the industry as a workforce but also as an entrepreneur. And the message that I want to give to the students is that if you don't know at the undergraduate level if if you have no clarity right now if you are exploring I would say to explore more and do some due diligence in searching what works for you and our horticulture science and control environment systems has a lot to to offer. Our field is so diverse that you can be an expert in one crop for example garbery daisies but then when it comes to growing sweet corn yeah or when it comes to growing strawberries it's completely different right and I I was I can that question really touched me because I have been a I was a breeder for tomatoes in my masters. Yeah I was a breeder for ornamentals in my PhD I was a breeder for strawberries in my postdoc and that is fine because you are working on different crops it actually the field is so diverse that you need to gain uh an understanding and expertise in the tools in the breeding toolbox that that are available in the breeder's toolbox and our department uh can help yeah absolutely on that um I was lucky to have a student and an undergraduate intern uh who came through USDA REU program in my lab um I was very impressed with the quality of work that he delivered on improving the germination in triploid watermelon and that is what we can help to inspire or to instigate the interest further and they can decide and there is still time that they can decide after learning all those our department Texas A and M system can actually provide an avenue for them to help make decisions and that is what our role should be we give them opportunities we give them hands on experience and also we we show them the path right for example I know the department has been very actively involved in finding internships for for students yeah bringing in the industry in to the department organizing seminars facilitate the giving these opportunities to the students to explore yeah and I think I think we should continue these activities so students can can uh explore further and then make make their decisions uh one message that I was always told is although you are working on strawberries now you don't know what you'll be working on in future yeah I'm working on spinach right now which I had no experience until I joined this position. So I'm also learning this at the same time I'm doing it.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

Well that's why we are still in school lifelong learning. Yeah it's a lifelong learning process well this is fascinating what I can sense is the passion for plant that you picked up growing up in a rural area back then back in Nepal so it's it's been a it's been a good sort of journey and maybe may not have been linear but you arrived where you needed to be so wonderful I have a saying about plants like just like plants we get planted where we are needed and I guess so we really need this these type of innovations in controlled environment production.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

Thank you very much for your time and good luck to you thanks and geger thank you so much for having me and I really appreciate that this opportunity and it was nice talking to you guys likewise.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

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