Grant to help find ways to protect food crops from threat of climate change

ONE OF the world’s most advanced facilities for growing plants will be upgraded using £829,000 of new funding.

Sheffield University has been awarded a grant from the Salix Energy Efficiency Scheme to install state-of-the-art LED lighting to The Sir David Read Controlled Environment Facility in a move which will bolster research into how crops are affected by climate change and disease.

The facility enables scientists to grow crops in environments similar to the majority of climate conditions found across the world, from the tropics to the polar regions.

It can also be used to recreate historic climate conditions and simulate conditions from a world that has been significantly affected by climate change.

By installing more modern lighting, the facility will give a spectral composition as close as possible to that of natural sunlight and provide the ability to mimic sunrise and sunset conditions. It will also use significantly less energy.

The facility is currently being used to research food security.

Timo Blake, controlled environment facilities manager in the university’s animal and plant sciences department, said: “As well as saving a huge amount of energy, this upgrade will give researchers here at Sheffield access to some of the best controlled plant growth facilities in the world.

“Researchers using the facilities will be able to accurately track weather conditions from different parts of the planet, along with the ability to use climate data from historical and modelled weather systems too.”