Enhancing sustainability in aeroponic farming: accelerating production time for strawberry and decreasing environmental impact with alternative nutrients for lettuce cultivation.

In the recent years the growing global population and climate change have driven the need to develop new farming methods. The indoor agriculture represents a possible solution. It is an innovative farming technique that does not use soil for crop cultivation and allows the management of climatic and environmental factors, like temperature, nutrient solution concentration and light spectrum. Despite its attractive characteristics, soilless farming requires high energy and resource consumption. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to explore various possibilities to maintain system productivity while reducing resource consumption. On one hand, the analysis is based on accelerating strawberry production through the use of far-red light in addition to white light. On the other hand, the study is focused on decreasing the environmental impact of lettuce cultivation by using nutrient solutions consisting of organic waste. The obtained results revealed that in strawberry cultivation the far-red component has a pivotal role in flowering phase. Instead, after the bud emergence, plants grown under control, only white light, and ones under treatment, white light with added far-red radiation, have similar behaviours. Concerning lettuce cultivation, the study demonstrated that lettuce is influenced by the typology of nutrient solution that is used. Between the tested alternatives, only the nutrient formed by the organic fraction of municipal waste maintains reasonable productivity of the system in comparison with mineral nutrient solutions. These outcomes emphasise the potential of using customized light spectrum and organic nutrient solutions in indoor agriculture, preparing the ground for more efficient and eco-friendly farming practices.