With USU plants, soils, and climate Master's candidate Abbey Lazier.
Abbey has been studying the potential benefits to growing dwarf and micro-dwarf crops.
She suggests that they may be able to accommodate limitations for space, transportation costs, and food waste.
Wynter Varner
Thank you for joining us today, Abbey.
Abbey Lazier
Thanks, Wynter.
Wynter Varner
What specific problems are you hoping dwarf and micro-dwarf crop cultivation will help solve?
Abbey Lazier
Food security, as we know, is an ongoing concern in many areas throughout the world.
Interestingly, urban gardening helps to address many aspects of food insecurity that are often overlooked by our modern food systems. It helps produce local, fresh produce for families.
One of the biggest challenges facing our urban gardeners is limited space, so limited growing area.
More and more people, as we know, are living in urban regions, apartments, or town homes where they don't have access to a large backyard. Even those with a backyard may only have room for a few containers or a small raised bed, you know.
Even small producers growing in a greenhouse or a controlled environment, such as indoor vertical gardening or hydroponics, are very limited by growing space.
So these dwarf crops offer a way to produce food, fresh produce, in these environments, because they're much smaller than conventional varieties, while also being surprisingly productive.
I'm particularly interested in how these crops can make food production more accessible to people who might not otherwise have the space, time, or resources to garden.
This can help people stay connected with their food systems and stabilize local food production within cities to help combat widespread food insecurity.
One of the other target audiences of my research is actually NASA, because they're working to grow food in space so that we can go farther and not have to rely on earth resupply missions.
There's been a lot of research that also shows that growing food is beneficial for the mental health of astronauts.
I'm sure that's something many of your listeners have experienced, if they're working in their own gardens.
Overall, whether we're talking about space-limited growers on Earth or in space, the same principles can help someone successfully grow food in limited areas — whether that's on a patio, balcony, sunny windowsill, or even the moon.
Wynter Varner
What features of these crops will help to target these issues?
Abbey Lazier
The key advantage of dwarf crops is that they're incredibly space efficient.
They stay compact, often less than a foot or so tall. They require a lot less growing area and are easier to manage than conventional crops or garden varieties.
Many dwarf crops also have what's called a high harvest index, and all that means is that they put more of their energy into producing edible fruits rather than stems and leaves.
This makes them very efficient users of space, water, nutrients, and light.
Another big advantage of these dwarf crops is easy management.
Anyone who's grown their own garden knows that it can take hours to trellis or prune unruly tomato plants. Because these dwarfs are smaller, however, they're easier to maintain, harvest, and fit into container-based production systems for home gardeners.
This can make growing fresh produce much more feasible.
Wynter Varner
What crops have you specifically been researching?
Abbey Lazier
My primary research has focused on dwarf and miniature dwarf tomatoes.
Tomatoes are one of the most popular crops grown by home gardeners worldwide, but traditional varieties can become quite large.
I've evaluated a range of dwarf tomato varieties under different lighting conditions to better understand how plant size, yield, and fruit quality respond to the environment.
While dwarf tomatoes are my primary focus, I'm also interested in applying these principles to other dwarf fruiting crops, such as peppers and peas.
Ultimately, the goal is to identify varieties that perform well in these space-limited growing systems, while producing high-quality fruits and harvests for our growers.
Wynter Varner
Do you have any other resources that you'd like to share today?
Abbey Lazier
One thing I'd encourage gardeners to remember is that successful food production starts with matching the right plant to the right environment.
Although dwarf crops are incredibly productive, they still need adequate light, water, and nutrition to perform well.
For anyone interested in learning more, USU Extension offers a wide range of gardening resources for information specific to container growing, indoor gardening, or controlled environment agriculture.
Check out our lab's website, which is the Sustainable Environment Agriculture Lab at Utah State University, led by Dr. Noah Langenfeld.
We're working on fact sheets and a comprehensive cultivar guide that will help make all this information easily available to the public.
Listeners are also welcome to reach out to myself (via email or LinkedIn) or Dr. Langenfeld (via email or LinkedIn).
Wynter Varner
Thank you again for joining us today, Abbey.
Abbey Lazier
Of course, thank you so much for having me.
Wynter Varner
This has been Wynter Varner with the USU Extension Education Highlights. Thank you for tuning in.
