Rohan Rege

Fab Lab Zero
Vigyan Ashram


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Azollae-Anabaena is an extensively popular symbiotic organism in agriculture.
The eukaryotic partner Azolla houses the cyanobacterium in its leaf cavities
and provides carbon sources and in turn obtains nitrogen requirements. This
mutual exchange helps in quick growth and multiplication of fern under optimal
environmental conditions.

Azolla belongs to the Azollaceae, a heterosporous free-floating fern. The species
I'm going to use for my project is Azolla Pinnata.

This plant has been of interest of botanist and Asian agronomists because of
its symbiotic association with a nitrogen fixing blue-green algae and rapid
growth in nitrogen-deficient habitats.

In natural conditions azolla multiply by vegetative reproduction and takes about
3-10 days for doubling of biomass. The amount of time taken to double the volume
is very dependent on the environmental conditions. Azolla grown in optimum light
and temperature conditions in a laboratory, obtained about 2 days doubling time
or less.

I wanted make nano phytotron to understand and automate growth of Azolla Pinnta.
This structure could be scaled to provide beds for cultivation of azolla.
If possible, I want to also measure biological parameters from the plant for
example: studying the working of circadian clock of the plant Being of a
mechanical engineer, I don't know how of this I'll be able to sucessfully
measure / integrate. I could then use these parameters to control conditions
in my nano phytotron and create a feedback loop.

This project could really reduce the cultivation time of azolla in Vigyan Ashram
from 10-12 days to at least 5-6 days. Also, the whole idea behind this project is
to introduce a proteins by fixing atmospheric nitrogen as fast as possible.

Currently azolla is generally used as fodder for dairy animals and fish food.
I want to test azolla in poultry for harvesting eggs. Eggs are one of the
highest and tastiest source of proteins. Proteins are basically long sequences
of amino acids. Going deeper, amino acids are organic compounds containing
amine (-NH2) and a carboxyl group (-COOH) along with a side chain.

So eggs, simply put are nothing but nitrogen carbon and oxygen. Fixing nitrogen
may open open the possibilities of cheaper poultry.

This project could open new and maybe even better ways to cultivate azolla

An inital idea of the sketch is as hown below



The green box will hold all the electronics and sensors.
The blue box is some kind of actuator that will cause disturbance in the water.
Might be a bubbler or some kind of peizo device

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References:

1 Watanabe I. (1982) Azolla—Anabaena symbiosis — its physiology and use in
 tropical agriculture. In: Dommergues Y.R., Diem H.G. (eds) Microbiology
 of Tropical Soils and Plant Productivity. Developments in Plant and Soil
 Sciences, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht

2 Encyclopédie Méthodique, Botanique 1(1): 343. 1783. "Name - Azolla Lam".
 Tropicos. Saint Louis, Missouri: Missouri Botanical Garden.

3 Moore, A. W. (1969). "Azolla: Biology and agronomic significance"

4 Alalade, O. A. and E. A. Iyayi. (2006). Chemical composition and
 the feeding value of azolla (Azolla pinnata) meal for egg-type
 chicks. International Journal of Poultry Science