Smart Plant Factory

Professor Kozai obtained a BS degree in Horticultural Sciences from Chiba University, and Master and Doctoral degrees in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Tokyo. When he started his academic career in 1973 as an agricultural engineer, his work was focused on greenhouse environment control engineering. After establishing his early work on greenhouse light environments, energy saving, ventilation and computer control, his scientific interest extended to in vitro environment control in plant tissue culture, sugar-free media and photoautotrophic micro-propagation, and plant production in closed systems with artificial lighting. His first paper on plant production using LED was published in the early 1990’s.   He was inaugurated as the President of Chiba University in 2005. He subsequently returned to research and education as a professor emeritus in an endowed chair position at the Center for Environment, Health and Field Sciences, Chiba University, with a special focus on medicinal plant production under controlled environments. From 2010 to 2018, he worked as the President of Japan Plant Factory Association (non-profit organization) and has been leading  the R & D of “plant factory with artificial lighting (PFAL)” for commercial production of plants and “integrative environment control of greenhouses” using heat pump, fogging and null-balance CO2 enrichment systems for hot summer regions. Between 2010 and 2018, he gave invited lectures at more than 20 international conferences held in Abu Dhabi, Australia, China, England, Korea, Panama, Portugal, Thailand, Turkey and USA.  His awards include: Lifetime Achievement Award (2009) from Society of In Vitro Biology, USA; the 2002 Purple Ribbon Award from Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports; Japan Prize of Agricultural Sciences from Association of Japanese Agricultural Scientific Societies, and many others.  Publications: He has published more than 200 refereed papers over 50 book chapters and more than 10 books in English. In 2016, LED Lighting for Urban Agriculture edited by T. Kozai, K Fujiwara and E. Runkle was published by Springer. In 2015, Plant Factory: An indoor vertical farming system for efficient quality food production edited by T. Kozai, G. Niu and M. Takagaki was published by Academic Press.

Part１  Characteristics of current plant factories and next generation plant factory.- 1.Current Status of Plant Factories with Artificial Lighting (PFALs) and Smart PFALs (Toyoki Kozai).- 2. Plant Factories with Artificial Lighting (PFALs): Benefits, Problems and Challenges (Toyoki Kozai).- 3.Protocols, issues and potential improvements of current cultivation systems (Na Lu and Shigeharu Shimamura).- 4. Design and Control of smart PFAL (Yoshihiro Nakabo) 5. Designing a Cultivation System Module (CSM) Considering the Cost Performance – A Step Towards Smart PFALs - (Toyoki Kozai).- Part 2   Recent Outcomes in Development and Business.- 6. Business planning on Efficiency, Productivity, and Profitability (Kaz Uraisami).- 7. Renewable energy makes plant factory “smart” (Kaz Uraisami).- 8.Total indoor farming concepts for large scale production (Marc Kreuger, Lianne Meeuws, Gertjan Meeuws).- 9. SaibaiX: Production process management system (Shunsuke  Sakaguchi).-10. Air distribution and its uniformity (Ying Zhang and Murat Kacira).- Part 3  Re-considerations of photosynthesis, LEDs, units and terminology.- 11. Reconsidering the Fundamental Characteristics of Photosynthesis and LEDs  (Toyoki Kozai and Masayuki Nozue).- 12. Reconsidering the terminology and units for light and nutrient solution  (Toyoki Kozai , Satoru Tsukagoshi and Shunsuke  Sakaguchi).- Part 4 Advances in Research on LED lighting.- 13. Usefulness of broadband-spectrum white LEDs to envision future plant factory (Hatsumi Nozue and Masao Gomi).- 14. LED lighting technique to control plant growth and morphology　(Tomohiro Jishi).- 15. The quality and quality shifting of the night interruption light affect the morphogenesis and flowering in floricultural plants (Byoung Ryong Jeong,  Yoo Gyeong Park).- Part 5   Advanced technologies to be implemented in the smart plant factory.- 16. Mechanization of Agriculture considering Its Business model (Tamio Tanikawa).- 17. Quantifying the environmental and energy benefits of food growth in urban environment (Rebecca Ward, Melanie Jans-Singh and Ruchi Choudhary).- 18. Applications for breeding and high-wire tomato production in plant factory (Marc Kreuger, Lianne Meeuws and Gertjan Meeuws).- 19. Molecular breeding for plant factory – Strategies and Technology (Richalynn Leong and Daisuke Urano).- 20. Production of value-added plants (Shoko Hikosaka).- 21. Chemical inquiry into herbalmedicines and food additives (Natsuko Kagawa).- 22. Detection and utilization of biological rhythms in plant factories  (Hirokazu Fukuda, Yusuke Tanigaki, Shogo Moriyuki).- 23. Automated characterization of plant growth and flowering dynamics using RGB images (Wei Guo).- 24. Towards Nutrient Solution Composition Control in Hydroponic System (Toyoki Kozai, Satoru Tsukagoshi and Syunsuke Sakaguchi).- 25. Phenotyping- and AI-based environmental control and breeding for PFAL (Eri Hayashi and Toyoki Kozai).- 26. Plant cohort research and its application (Toyoki Kozai, Na Lu, Rikuo Hasegawa, Osamu Nunomura, Tomomi Nozaki, Yumiko Amagai and Eri Hayashi).- 27. Concluding remarks (Toyoki Kozai).