Agricultural and Biosystem Engineering Students Develop Radish Microgreens as Urban Farming Solutions

Mus'ab Az Zubairi, student of Agricultural and Biosystem Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural Technology, Udayana University who was supervised by Ni Nyoman Sulastri, S.TP., M.Agr., Ph.D and I Putu Gede Budisanjaya, S.TP., M.T. conducted a study that aimed to determine the characteristics of radish microgreen growth on the effect of variations in growing media and grow light and to determine the treatment that produced the best growth.

 

Microgreens are green vegetables that are harvested in the age range of 7-14 days after sowing so that microgreens have a high nutritional content. Microgreen radish has several properties, namely, it can reduce joint pain, reduce pre-menstruation, prevent wrinkles, prevent anemia and also remove toxins from the body. Microgreens are the best solution for urban farming systems, from the ease of finding planting media, tools to use, and to improving nutrition. In addition, there is an opportunity for the development of large micro-vegetables and they are in great demand because they harvest quickly, are rich in vitamins and eat quickly, especially when agricultural land is getting narrower or in plant factories.

 

 

Zubairi said that this study used two treatments, namely the planting media and irradiation treatment. The treatment of planting media consisted of three types, namely cocopeat, rockwool and sand. The irradiation treatment consisted of sun irradiation, white grow light and pink grow light. Parameters observed were leaf canopy area, chlorophyll content, number of leaf blades and plant height. Determination of the leaf canopy was carried out using the image processing method, while the chlorophyll content was determined using a SPAD (Soil Plant Analysis Development) chlorophyll meter. In general, the results of this study showed that the use of a pink LED grow light and sand planting media produced the best results for each growth parameter, he said.