By admin 
YUMA, AZ (AZFamily) — Yuma grows lettuce. A lot of it. Now, new technology is being tested in the desert Southwest that could help farmers grow even more, even as rising temperatures and drier conditions put added pressure on agriculture.
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At a University of Arizona facility in Yuma, developers with AtmoCooling planted vegetables. They demonstrated a climate-control system they say could be a game changer — literally — by changing the environment around crops.
“We are going to show that Yuma can have ag that grows what we want when we want all year long,” said Paul Mahacek, CEO and co-founder of AtmoCooling.
Mahacek said it took about five years to develop the high-tech system, designed to use real-time data to help control the climate and keep crops cooler at critical times. The technology was developed in the Middle East — one of the world’s warmest regions — and is now being put to the test in Arizona.
“The things we are seeing are climate change, it’s getting hotter, and it’s getting drier, and it’s more and more challenging to be producing with the lands we have, and it’s not a Yuma problem, this is a global problem,” Mahacek said.
How the system works
AtmoCooling says the technology could help farmers grow crops during the hottest months of the summer, giving them more control over growing conditions — and more flexibility in when and how they produce.
During a demonstration, the company showed how sensors and controls adjust the system in response to shifting desert weather.
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Ultrasonic wind sensors track wind speed and direction and can adjust to changing conditions.
“The two pieces here, we have the misting system and then we have the control system,” Mahacek said. “In the control system, there’s the main pump, there’s the filters and the valve block as well as the brains and the instrumentation — and that’s what’s making all the decisions about our live weather conditions. So whatever it is on a minute-by-minute basis, [it’s] going to be adjusting the misting system to be as efficient as we can be with our water and our power.”
The system can also be operated remotely through an electronic device, allowing farmers to turn it on or off with a few clicks.
What’s next
Developers say they’ll return in mid-August to check on how the vegetables are progressing.
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