Research project on water reuse in agriculture

The process of agri­cul­tur­al food pro­duc­tion with recy­cled water suc­cess­ful­ly devel­oped in the HypoWave research project is enter­ing large-scale appli­ca­tion for the first time. On a “small scale”, the mod­el for hydro­pon­ic veg­etable pro­duc­tion with recy­cled irri­ga­tion water will be on dis­play at IFAT in Munich. The HypoWave+ research team will present the project from May 30 to June 3, 2022, in Hall B2 at the booth of the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and Research (BMBF).

Agri­cul­tur­al veg­etable pro­duc­tion is water-inten­sive. But water scarci­ty is now a glob­al prob­lem that is being exac­er­bat­ed by advanc­ing cli­mate change. New, water-sav­ing cul­ti­va­tion meth­ods are being sought to ensure the high­est pos­si­ble yields. With the research project led by the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Braun­schweig, the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and Research (BMBF) is fund­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of an alter­na­tive form of agri­cul­tur­al cul­ti­va­tion in com­bi­na­tion with water reuse on an indus­tri­al scale. The process enables region­al, water-con­serv­ing and year-round veg­etable cul­ti­va­tion in green­hous­es and thus offers an alter­na­tive to con­ven­tion­al veg­etable production.

Regional food production despite water scarcity

The hydro­pon­ic process, in which plants in con­tain­ers with­out soil are sup­plied via a nutri­ent solu­tion using recy­cled water, was suc­cess­ful­ly test­ed in the pre­vi­ous project in Hat­torf, Low­er Sax­ony. The research team led by project man­ag­er Thomas Dock­horn from the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Braun­schweig and project coor­di­na­tor Mar­ti­na Winker from ISOE — Insti­tute for Social-Eco­log­i­cal Research is now pre­sent­ing the process at the Munich IFAT. At the BMBF booth, the sci­en­tists will present the inno­va­tion on a mod­el scale: The process can be used to devel­op an alter­na­tive to irri­ga­tion with drink­ing water and ground­wa­ter. The cul­ti­va­tion method also offers an opti­mized nutri­ent sup­ply, since vital nutri­ents such as nitro­gen and phos­pho­rus are sup­plied to the plants from the treat­ed water.