The F4H Living Lab is Live!

For those of you interested in food systems, here’s an update from the Food for Humanity Initiative: “If you have been to the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) campus, you may recall seeing a very nice but dormant greenhouse next to the Tree Ring Lab. The greenhouse originally came with the Lamont property that was donated to Columbia University in 1948, and had undergone extensive renovations in the early 2000’s thanks to the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences Chair Kevin Griffin’s research funding…

With a bit of love and labor investment from the F4H team (including our two graduate interns, Angie and Michael), the Lamont greenhouse has been revived as the F4H Living Lab this summer, hosting two students-led research projects to study crop response in a hot and dry environment not so different from the crop fields in climate-impacted regions around the world.

And don’t worry, we are not “cooking” plants (or students) in the greenhouse. With running fans, open air vents, and added shade panels, indoor temperatures have remained in the safe zone, around 90-105°F in the daytime and cool down to 70°F in the evening. The crop plants seem to love it so far. The next phase of retrofitting will involve upgrades such as astronomical sun tracking and automation of the fans and shades, and new energy-efficient fans and professional-grade shade panels. Currently growing in the F4H Living Lab are a selection of heat and drought tolerant “opportunity crops” that are also highly nutritious: okra, red corn, lima bean, pigeon pea, and cowpea.