Soil-free agriculture | Yuichi Mori | TEDxTokyo

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

Yuichi Mori talks about the world’s first agricultural technology based on a hydrogel film, created to address some of the serious issues that many communities in the world are struggling with, regarding food shortage, water scarcity and soil contamination.

Hi, my name is Yuichi Mori.

I would like to show you

an interesting agricultural technology
that we have developed.

We can use this plastic film
instead of soil, to grow plants.

Mind you, this isn't Saran wrap.

(Laughter)

This is a special film we have invented.

All sorts of plants can be grown on this.

You can see an example right here.

Because our drive over here
took so many hours,

it may look a little flat.

If we hold it at an angle, like this ...

You can see the plants
are not coming off the foil.

Let's look at the other side.

You can see the roots
are not digging through the film,

but they are spread around
on the surface, not puncturing it.

Let's flip it upside down.

(Laughter)

(Cheers)

(Applause)

The film makes it possible
to transport the plants

without damaging their roots.

We also made these containers
out of our film.

And they contain liquid fertilizer.

This is what grew on one
after we sprinkled it with lettuce seeds.

Last year, Japanese astronaut
Soichi Noguchi

successfully grew herbs
on the International Space Station

using this nutrient bag.

Since it was done in zero gravity,

they didn't have to hold it
like this; it floated around.

Like a houseplant, I heard
it made the ISS feel like home.

(Laughter)

In fact, this technology
has another important potential use:

it could be utilized to replace
the terribly contaminated soil

left after the March 11 disaster.

That is what our goal right now,
and we are working hard toward it.

Let me explain how we can use
this film to grow lettuce.

Suppose this is the ground.

And we sow lettuce seeds on it.

This is an impermeable layer,

made of durable plastic
that won't easily tear.

Then, we take this pipe
with very tiny holes,

which slowly let out
nutrients from the fertilizer.

We cover everything with a sheet of felt.

Then, we add our film.

You can use it to grow
lettuce, or tomatoes ...

You sow your seeds,
and you get this result.

Very simple.

The most important part
of this technology is this film.

The film is made of hydrogel.

That's the super-absorbent
stuff in diapers.

It absorbs water or nutrients very well.

Only one side of it is wet.

So the hydrogel absorbs liquid
only from one side.

The other side stays dry,
no liquid comes out there.

Since plants can't survive
without water, on the dry side,

they desperately try to pull in
water and nutrients from the wet side,

attaching their roots to that side
of the film as much as possible.

Just like people get better at something,
the more effort they put in,

the vegetables get much tastier
through this process

and they become very nutritious.

When I first ate a tomato grown on this,

I couldn't believe how sweet it was.

The overachievers
of the vegetable kingdom,

the tomatoes did even better
than we expected.

Another characteristic of the film
is that you can't see any holes in it,

but it actually has numerous
nano-sized pores.

It was very difficult to create
perforations of this size,

but we eventually succeeded.

The film can absorb water or nutrients,

but viruses and bacteria
can't pass through it

because they are too large
for the size of the pores,

so this way, the plants
can be kept healthy.

So you don't need pesticides.

The thing we care about most
when talking about the vegetables we eat

is whether they are safe and nutritious.

So by using this technology to grow them,

you can make sure
that the produce is good for you.

Now, let me show you a video.

Could you pull it up? Good.

Around 20 farms in Japan
are now using the film to grow tomatoes.

This is a big one-hectare farm.

All of these tomatoes
are growing on our film.

There are about 80,000 tomato plants here.

You can see yellow ones and red ones,
there are growing strong, all over.

This is the Tsukuba Market Garden.

The vegetables produced here

are very popular at grocery stores
and online shops.

We have brought these to show you
that we can grow tomatoes this big, too.

I wish all of you could taste
our tomatoes; they are very sweet.

We can produce big tomatoes like this one.

This fresh melon was grown on our film.

You can use or film to grow
tomatoes, strawberries,

cucumbers, peppers or lettuce,

almost any vegetable you can think of.

Another feature of this technology

is that since this layer
lets nothing penetrate through,

the film can be used anywhere.

You can put it on contaminated soil,

or soil that is too salty,
contains pesticides,

or even organic mercury,
it doesn't matter.

So we can always grow
vegetables safely, with no worries,

just anywhere, even on sand,

or on the concrete floor
of a factory that went out of business,

or on ice, somewhere in Siberia.

We actually tried to prove
this would work in the desert.

Could you roll the video, please?

In the middle of the desert of Dubai,
there are no trees, no grass ...

Maybe some wild camels.

(Laughter)

After spreading our film on the sand,

we sowed tomato seeds
that we brought from Japan.

The strong sunlight over there
made it grow really quickly.

These people are from Oman.

We had a lot of visitors
from the neighboring countries.

They all found it very interesting.

We believe that using this technology,

we could transform the barren desert
into a productive agricultural land.

However, our main interests lie

in the ground contaminated
by the March 11 tsunami.

This technology will solve the problems

of contaminated sludge,
oil or radioactive materials in the soil.

We hope that we will be able to rejuvenate
agriculture in those regions

by using this technology.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)