科学美国人60秒 缅因州农场在采摘蓝莓的同时也在收获太阳能量（在线收听）

This Maine Farm Is Harvesting the Sun's Power while it Picks the Blueberries

缅因州农场在采摘蓝莓的同时也在收获太阳能量

Carey: I’m standing on a hillside. All around me are short shrubs with purple stems and waxy leaves. A brisk December wind moves through the lowbush blueberry bushes. But among the plants sits an odd sight… row after row of solar panels.

凯莉：我站在山坡上。我周围都是矮小的灌木，有紫色的茎和蜡质的叶子。十二月的一阵轻风吹过低矮的蓝莓灌木丛。但在这些植物中有一种奇怪的景象……一排排的太阳能电池板。

You’ve heard of solar farms. And you’ve heard of blueberry farms. But a solar-blueberry farm? Probably not–this is the first farm to combine the two sun harvesters. And that combo could be vital as the Earth’s climate changes.

你听说过太阳能农场。你也听说过蓝莓农场。但是太阳能蓝莓农场呢？可能不会——这是第一个将两台太阳能采集器结合起来的农场。随着地球气候的变化，这种组合可能至关重要。

Reporting from the coast of Maine, I'm Teresa Carey, and this is Scientific American's 60-Second Science.

来自缅因州海岸的报道，我是特蕾莎·凯莉，这是《科学美国人》的60秒科学。

Sweetland: In this area we've got the solar panels in among the blueberry plants. And up here, it's more open. We still have stone walls there and some rock piles, but most of the land is just opened for the blueberry production.

斯威特兰：在这个地区，我们在蓝莓植物中安装了太阳能电池板。而在这里，它更开放。我们仍然有石墙和一些岩石堆，但大部分土地刚刚开放用于蓝莓生产。

Carey: When it comes to raising blueberries, Paul Sweetland has seen it all.

Sweetland: I've been doing blueberries basically my whole life. It's been amazing to see how we've changed our cultural practices over time.

凯莉：说到种植蓝莓，保罗·斯威特兰已经见识了一切。

斯威特兰：我一辈子都在吃蓝莓。随着时间的推移，看到我们如何改变我们的文化习俗，真是令人惊讶。

Carey: Sweetland farms Maine's lowbush blueberries – the tiny wild berries the state is famous for. In fact, Maine is the only state in the country where wild blueberries are commercially harvested. You can buy them in grocery stores from Hawaii, to Texas, to Alaska. They’re about half the size of conventional blueberries, but with twice the antioxidants and even more flavor.

凯莉：斯威特兰农场种植缅因州的矮灌木蓝莓——该州以其微小的野生浆果而闻名。事实上，缅因州是美国唯一一个商业化收获野生蓝莓的州。你可以在从夏威夷到德克萨斯再到阿拉斯加的杂货店买到。它们的大小约为传统蓝莓的一半，但含有两倍的抗氧化剂和更多的味道。

Sweetland: Way back, probably 30 years ago, the pruning method was burning. So we used to come in and burn the whole field. Originally, we all used hand rakes. Now there are not so many hand rakes and because we won't be able to use some in here we have the tractor harvesters. There's still a lot of blueberries ready to rake by the hand but there's fewer people willing to work that hard.

斯威特兰：早在大约30年前，修剪方法就已经过时了。所以我们过去常常进来烧掉整个田地。最初，我们都使用手耙。现在没有那么多手耙，因为我们不能在这里使用一些，所以我们有拖拉机收割机。现在仍然有很多蓝莓可以用手耙，但愿意这么努力的人越来越少了。

Carey: Sweetland has tried every farming technique. He knows what works best. But for the 2022 harvest, things are going to be different. Last summer, David Dickey, the farm’s owner, partnered with BlueWave Solar to build an array of nearly 11,000 solar panels directly over top of his farm. They cover 12 of the 30 total acres.

凯莉：斯威特兰已经尝试了每一种农业技术。他知道什么最管用。但对于2022年的收获来说，情况将有所不同。去年夏天，农场的所有者戴维·迪基（David Dickey）与蓝波太阳能公司（BlueWave Solar）合作，在农场的正上方建造了一个由近11000块太阳能电池板组成的阵列。它们覆盖了30英亩土地中的12英亩。

Sweetland: It's just an interesting new challenge. Now that construction's done, now we can come in and do what needs to be done for the blueberries. Basically, what we're going to do is work between the rows.

斯威特兰：这只是一个有趣的新挑战。现在建设完成了，现在我们可以进来做蓝莓需要做的事情。基本上，我们要做的是两行之间的工作。

Carey: This unique farm is just one example of a burgeoning industry known as agrivoltaics -- placing solar panels on productive agricultural land. Pilot farms like this are springing up all over the country, hoping to show how collecting sunlight on farms might improve agriculture and offer farmers a second source of income. But, it is still too early to know how well it will work.

凯里：这个独特的农场只是一个新兴的农业产业的例子，这个产业被称为“农业光伏”——在多产的农业用地上安装太阳能电池板。像这样的试点农场正在全国各地涌现，希望展示在农场上收集阳光如何改善农业，并为农民提供第二个收入来源。但是，要知道它的效果如何还为时过早。

Calderwood: We're trying to figure out exactly what it would take to shift from growing in a field landscape where there's no obstruction, it's just a big field of blueberries.

卡尔德伍德：我们正试图弄清楚，要想从没有障碍物的田野景观中转变过来，需要什么，那里只有一大片蓝莓。

Carey: Lily Calderwood is the University of Maine Extension’s expert in wild blueberries.

Calderwood: And then in this situation, there are rows of solar panels. So it's really shifting from a field crop to a row crop, which is a big shift to make.

卡蕾：莉莉卡德伍德是缅因大学推广野生蓝莓的专家。

卡尔德伍德：在这种情况下，有一排排的太阳能电池板。所以它真的从大田作物转变为连作作物，这是一个巨大的转变。

Carey: Shading the plants and conserving water may potentially improve crop productivity. But no one knows for sure because it's never been done before. Calderwood is determined to find out.

凯里：给植物遮荫和保存水分可能会提高作物的生产力。但没有人确切知道，因为以前从未做过。卡尔德伍德决心找出答案。

She is heading a four-year research project, funded for the first year by Blue Wave Solar, to see if blueberries can thrive in the shade of a solar array.

她正在领导一个为期四年的研究项目，该项目第一年由Blue Wave Solar公司资助，目的是研究蓝莓能否在太阳能电池板的阴影下茁壮成长。

Calderwood: This past year was the prune year, so no crop was harvested. And then next year, there will be a crop harvested. And the following year will be another prune year, then the fourth year would be another crop year. So ideally, we would have two crop seasons of data to collect, and a total of four years.

卡尔德伍德：过去的一年是修剪年，所以没有收获作物。然后明年，将有一个收成。第二年将是另一个修剪年，第四年将是另一个收获年。因此，理想情况下，我们需要收集两个作物季节的数据，总共四年。

Carey: Calderwood is monitoring soil quality, moisture, and crop productivity at the farm. She hopes to create a new set of farming rules for power + produce marriage.

凯里：卡尔德伍德正在监测农场的土壤质量、水分和作物产量。她希望为权力+婚姻创造一套新的农业规则。

Alan Knapp, an ecologist at Colorado State University, has already seen successful agrivoltaics projects -- in Colorado grasslands used for cattle grazing.

科罗拉多州立大学（Colorado State University）的生态学家艾伦·纳普（Alan Knapp）已经在科罗拉多州用于放牧的草原上看到了成功的农业项目。

Knapp: The first barrier to overcome is can it be done biologically? Can it be done physically? Can it be done? And then the next barrier would be adoption? How do you convince people who own the lands to be willing to change the way they've done things in the past, and integrate, for example, energy generation?

克纳普：要克服的第一个障碍是，它能在生物学上实现吗？可以用身体来做吗？能做到吗？然后下一个障碍就是收养？你如何说服拥有土地的人愿意改变他们过去的做事方式，并整合能源生产等？

Carey: Luckily for Sweetland, since blueberries aren’t grazing animals, bushes can’t bump up against and break solar panels.

And recently climatic unpredictability is already a motivating factor. In 2020, Maine blueberry yields dropped by 50% because of frosts in May and June, followed by a statewide drought. For this farm, a second, reliable income stream could really come in handy.

But not everyone is on board.

凯莉：对斯威特兰来说幸运的是，因为蓝莓不是放牧动物，所以灌木丛不会撞到太阳能电池板，也不会折断。

最近，气候的不可预测性已经成为一个推动因素。2020年，缅因州蓝莓产量下降了50%，原因是5月和6月出现霜冻，随后全州出现干旱。对于这个农场来说，第二个可靠的收入来源真的很有用。

但并不是所有人都在船上。

Calderwood: Some people feel that farmland should remain farmland. And why would we not put the solar panels on a building over a parking lot space that's already industrial?

卡尔德伍德：有些人认为农田应该是农田。我们为什么不把太阳能电池板安装在已经工业化的停车场上方的建筑上呢？

Carey: But solar panels require   a lot of area to generate power and effectively replace fossil fuels. There must be many panels, tightly packed together to maximize energy output. They also require unrestricted access to the sun, which is not always possible in a populated area.

凯莉：但是太阳能电池板需要很大的面积来发电和有效地替代化石燃料。必须有许多面板，紧密地包装在一起，以最大限度地提高能量输出。它们还需要不受限制地接近太阳，这在人口稠密的地区并不总是可能的。

Calderwood: Where rare we going to put all this energy? There's a lot of interest and motivation behind finding ways to have clean energy in Maine. So farmers and blueberry farmers have a place in that space. We're just trying to figure out where that might be.

卡尔德伍德：我们要把这些能量放在哪里？在缅因州寻找清洁能源的方法背后有很多兴趣和动机。所以农民和蓝莓农民在这个空间里有一席之地。我们只是想弄清楚它可能在哪里。

Carey: Alan Knapp in Colorado would like to see more farmers give this approach a try. He says that if it works, it could be an important strategy to help the U.S. meet renewable energy goals.

凯莉：科罗拉多州的艾伦·纳普希望看到更多的农民尝试这种方法。他说，如果它奏效，这可能是帮助美国实现可再生能源目标的一项重要战略。

Knapp: You can use the scorched earth approach, where you just put the solar panels in as dense as you can to optimize energy generation and usage. The ecosystem underneath is not going to be valuable. Or you can try   and integrate the two to maintain aspects of both. And I really think that's the future. We have the ability to co-locate energy generation and natural ecosystem services.

克纳普：你可以使用焦土方法，你只要把太阳能电池板放在尽可能密集的地方，以优化能源的产生和使用。下面的生态系统不会有价值。或者你可以尝试将两者结合起来，以维护两者的各个方面。我真的认为这就是未来。我们有能力将能源生产和自然生态系统服务合二为一。

Carey: Over the winter, Sweetland will check on the blueberry bushes from time to time, but the real work will begin this spring when he harvests the first crop grown under solar panels. When asked if he thinks the blueberries will thrive or even survive with the solar panels, Sweetland says…

凯莉：在冬天，斯威特兰会不时检查蓝莓灌木丛，但真正的工作将在今年春天开始，当他收获第一批在太阳能电池板下种植的作物时。当被问及他是否认为蓝莓会在太阳能电池板的作用下茁壮成长，甚至存活下来时，斯威特兰说…

Sweetland: I'm not sure where I stand. Time will tell. (laughs)

斯威特兰：我不确定我的立场。时间会证明一切

Thanks for listening. For Scientific American's 60-Second Science, I'm Teresa Carey.

谢谢收听。《科学美国人》的《60秒科学》，我是特蕾莎·凯莉。