WHy-Grow-in-Me

With the explosive growth in protected cultivation, there has been an increased demand for growing media. This trend is expected to continue in the future, with growing media production predicted to grow by 420% by 2050. Despite the expected growth in conventional media production, there is still predicted to be a shortfall in the market, with a gap of 65Mm3 yr-1 to be taken up by "new" growing media.

We are looking to address this by homogenising and binding the growing media together using novel bio-based and biodegradable polyurethane prepolymers (bPUP). This versatile polymer will act as a ‘glue’ to help bind the growing media and make it more consistent and we will conduct trials using the new media on crops such as tomatoes, basil and lettuce to test both the initial germination and final yield.