Unifarm
Unifarm
Unifarm is the plant and crop care provider for Wageningen University & Research and has a wide range of facilities, from trial fields, machinery and equipment to advanced, conditioned compartments (greenhouses and climate cells). These facilities enable a wide range of plant-related research at Wageningen University & Research. Unifarm's uniqueness is that all these facilities complement each other, enabling both a wide range of disciplinary research as well as multidisciplinary research. Unifarm can support the entire process of research from sowing, through observations with equipment, to harvesting and processing and analysis of the harvested product to long-term product storage.
Infrastructure and User Services
Unifarm has a wide range of facilities for plant, crop, nature, and soil research. The facilities can be divided into:
- Trial fields. 220 ha of grounds (clay, peat, sand) with high homogeneity levels for field experiments and crop equipment.
- Greenhouses. Modern greenhouses of circa 15.000 m2 with 150 independently computer controlled compartments with water/nutrient management and controlled climate (air condition, humidity, CO2, artificial light/screens, entrance lock). High contaiment greenhouse with 64 PKM-II and 6 PKM-III compartments. Cultivation in soil, on floor, tablets, substrate gutters and hydroponics.
- Climate chambers. 50 computer controlled climate rooms for plant growth with artificial light (dimmable LED,), CO2, humidity and water/nutrient management. Containment levels up to PCM-II. 15 climate rooms for insect studies including processing area and equipment, 25 climate cabinets and 20 cold/freeze stores (-18°C / +5°C).
- Netherlands Plant Ecophenotyping Centre (NPEC). NPEC is hosted at Unifarm. Climate rooms, greenhouse compartments, field vehicles and drones are equipped with camera systems to be able to measure plants morphologically and physiologically in changing climate conditions.
- Processing rooms. Processing facilities with seed cleaning, root rinsing, drying and grinding equipment and technical workshop.
- Facilities for specific research. For example mushroom cultivation rooms and bee laboratory.
- Machinery & equipment. Field experiment equipment such as Haldrup sower, grain and grass harvester, slurry injector, soil sample equipment, corn chopper and small tractors. Commercial field crop equipment all GPS guided, transportation vehicles, cars, etc.
- Knowledge. 50 experts on plant and crop cultivation.
Examples/description of the type of research
All plant related research is possible with the available infrastructure. Focus on agriculture, horticulture, plant breeding, genetics, biosystematics, plant diseases (fungi, insects, nematodes, virus), plant and crop science, plant physiology, molecular and cell biology, organic farming, soil biology, forest management, nature conservation, ecology, biophysics, food chemistry, farm technology, meteorology, animal nutrition, bioprocess engineering, sea farming, hydrology, etc.
How to access the infrastructure?
- External researchers have access to the infrastructure through cooperative research projects with Wageningen University & Research.
- Directly with Unifarm if the facilities are available. Price list available.