By David Murphy 

The KAUST-founded advanced sustainable hot climate agricultural technology (AgTech) platform, RedSea, recently won a 2023 American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers' (ASABE) AE50 Award for their iyris Heat-Blocking Greenhouse Roof.? 
 
The pioneering sustainable AgTech business–established by KAUST researchers Dr. Ryan Lefers (CEO & co-founder), Professor Derya Baran (chief engineer & co-founder) and Professor Mark Tester (CSO & co-founder)–also recently won the ASABE’s Davidson Prize.  

The award is named after the founding president of ASABE, Jay Brownlee (J.B.) Davidson, widely regarded as "the father of modern agricultural engineering." ? 
 
A maximum of three Davidson Prizes are awarded each year, with winners expected to impact agricultural production, efficiency or safety significantly. The prize, selected from the annual winners of the AE50 award, recognizes RedSea’s contribution to sustainable agriculture and its innovations.?  

The associate professor of material science and engineering—who developed and patented RedSea's innovative greenhouse roof technology—believes that iyris is a “simple but highly effective innovation.” 

“As an academic, I always wanted my research to have an impact and contribute to a real-world benefit,” she noted. “To see something from lab-scale research and development all the way through to a commercial product (iyris SecondSky) has been amazing.  
 
“The AE50 Award signifies the achievement of this milestone; it is our first award for an individual product—and is hopefully the first of many.”  
 
Impactful heat-blocking technology 
 
Elevated and excess heating, caused by high levels of solar radiation, remains the most significant issue regarding greenhouses and controlled environment agriculture in warm climates. Rather than create a new way of farming, RedSea's research team realized that existing methods could be enhanced and improved to achieve the greatest impact. 
 
As Baran and her colleagues developed materials for optoelectronics, they discovered that some of the materials were highly transparent to the region of sunlight that plants need to grow, photosynthetically active radiation, but blocked sunlight in the near-infrared region, where the sun’s radiation causes heat. 
 
“We worked to develop these materials into a product which could be included in the most common roofing materials used for greenhouses, such as polyethylene, polycarbonate and acrylic, and so the iyris Heat-Blocking Roof was born,” she explained.  
 
“Roofs with the iyris materials embedded inside them can control the solar load on the greenhouse whilst maintaining the high light levels needed for a high crop yield. This has an incredibly impactful effect as it not only allows the grower to reduce their water and energy usage requirement, but it can also enable them to extend their growing season and grow further into the summer months.” 
 
Helping to feed the world sustainably 
 
Operating under a mission statement to: “feed the world sustainably,” RedSea also develops robust rootstocks that thrive in hot climates and saltwater and remote monitoring and control systems for data enterprises. 
 
Recent efforts have been directed towards developing crops and plants that are highly resistant to heat, salt and drought. As a result of this research—which began in the labs of Baran's colleague Professor Mark Tester—crop yields will be enhanced, costs will be reduced and natural resources will be conserved in climate-affected regions worldwide. 
 
“The iyris roof is a great example of enhancing and improving current methods,” Baran noted. “It is a like-for-like replacement with growers’ current roofs, but much more sustainable. When combined with other innovations we are developing, iyris provides a "root-to-roof" platform for increasing the sustainability of our food system globally. 
 
“The ASABE awards are, of course, a product of a team effort. I want to take this opportunity to thank and congratulate all the amazing people who have worked so hard to get to this point. It is truly incredible to be working with a team of such talented, passionate and dedicated people; a huge well done to everyone involved,” she concluded.