Microgreens World
Your weekly source for microgreens science, business & growing news
Science & Research · Human Trial
Thirty Women Drank an Iron-Biofortified Microgreens Smoothie Every Day for 28 Days in a Registered Trial. The First 13 Results Answer One Question and Leave the Bigger One Open.
VertiGreens is a registered human feeding trial, NCT06972927, sponsored by the University of Aberdeen and run at its Rowett Institute under Professor Alexandra Johnstone, with the crop grown at the James Hutton Institute’s Advanced Plant Growth Centre in Invergowrie. It was posted to ClinicalTrials.gov on May 15, 2025, began on July 18, 2025, and the registry record, updated Aug. 20, 2026, now shows it completed on May 4, 2026 with 30 women enrolled: 15 aged 18 to 49 and 15 postmenopausal. The design is single-group and open-label. Each woman recorded her habitual diet for a week, then drank one smoothie a day for 28 days containing 30 grams of microgreens grown in a vertical farm on a nutrient solution enhanced with iron. Consumed in full, a smoothie delivered 1.8 mg of iron. Blood was drawn on day one and day 28 for haemoglobin, serum iron, ferritin, C-reactive protein and vitamin B12. The exclusion list was long and deliberate: no anaemia, no haemoglobin under 120 g/L at screening, no iron or B12 supplements, no smokers, no pregnancy, no blood donation in the previous 16 weeks.
The results so far come from a poster, not a paper. Annika Bucky, Derek Stewart and Johnstone presented a preliminary analysis of the first 13 of 30 participants at the Nutrition Society’s Scottish Section conference on March 31 and April 1, 2026, published as an abstract in Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, and it took the prize for best poster. Dietary iron intake rose by a mean of 3.36 mg a day, plus or minus 1.90, against habitual intake, p below 0.001. Adherence was 97 per cent of smoothies consumed, participants reported high enjoyment, and there were no significant gastrointestinal symptoms or changes in bowel habit. Haemoglobin did not move: a mean change of 0.012 g/dL, plus or minus 0.38, p of 0.49, with what the authors call considerable variation between individuals. Serum ferritin, the marker of iron stores, was still to be analysed when the abstract went to press.
Read what that does and does not establish. Thirteen women ate a microgreen every day for four weeks, liked it, kept doing it, and their recorded iron intake went up. That is a feasibility result, and a clean one. It is not an iron status result. The authors say so themselves: haemoglobin is a relatively insensitive marker of short-term change, and the number that would show whether stores rose is the ferritin, which is not yet reported. Two more things a reader should hold. My arithmetic, not theirs: the intake rose 3.36 mg a day while the smoothie supplied 1.8 mg, so something beyond the microgreens, the fruit in the smoothie or a shift in the rest of the diet, accounts for the difference, and the abstract does not separate them. And with no control group, high enjoyment over four weeks cannot be told apart from the novelty of a study kit arriving at your door.
Why this belongs at the top of the page anyway. It is a pre-registered human trial, with outcomes named before the first blood draw, in which the intervention is a microgreen and the lever is agronomic biofortification in the nutrient solution. That lever is one every hydroponic grower already holds. The trial was powered at 30 participants to detect a within-subject effect of d equals 0.53 at 80 per cent power, and the registry shows the sample was reached. The abstract acknowledges support from Intelligent Growth Solutions, the Scottish vertical-farm technology company, and the registry lists no results posted yet, so the funding relationship is visible and the full dataset is not. Both of those are exactly what a reader should want to know before the headline number lands.
What to watch for, and what not to do in the meantime. The full 30-participant analysis with ferritin is the result that matters, and a peer-reviewed paper should follow the poster. When it lands, the questions to put to it are these: how much of the iron came from the microgreens rather than the fruit, what form and concentration of iron went into the solution, what the crop carried per 100 grams, and whether ferritin moved in the women who started lowest. Until then, nothing here supports a claim that any microgreen treats, prevents or corrects iron deficiency, and the trial excluded anaemic women by design. This page will run the ferritin numbers the week they are published, whichever way they point.
ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT06972927 · clinicaltrials.gov · Record updated 20 August 2026 | Bucky, Stewart & Johnstone, Proc. Nutr. Soc. · doi.org · Vol. 85, OCE4, E281, 2026
Lighting · Phenotyping
Sunflower and Radish Show Blue-Light Stress Within Two Hours. Barley Takes Ten.
A Southern Federal University team in Rostov-on-Don raised sunflower, pea, rocket, barley and ‘Sango Purple’ radish on felt mats under 5 µmol of fluorescent light at about 25 °C (77 °F), then put them under a blue LED at 2,500 µmol·m−2·s−1 for twelve hours and photographed the canopy hourly with a hyperspectral camera. A Random Forest model trained on 85 vegetation indices separated stressed trays from controls with better than 93 per cent accuracy. Sunflower and radish crossed the stress threshold after two hours, pea and rocket after three, and barley only reached the Kappa cut-off at ten. Maximum quantum yield fell in every crop, most in rocket (0.82 to 0.61) and least in barley (0.81 to 0.71). The canopies paled visibly, and reversibly: chlorophyll did not change, carotenoids drifted up 5 to 27 per cent in a way the authors call likely random, and barley trays read as unstressed 24 hours later. The authors put the effect down to chloroplasts moving away from the light rather than pigment breaking down, and label that an assumption. Two cautions from the paper itself. The dose is a laboratory stress, far above anything a production lamp delivers, and the model needs recalibrating before it is trusted in a greenhouse or on a rack. What transfers is the ordering: if you push blue light hard at the end of a run, sunflower and radish will tell you first.
Dmitriev et al., Stresses · mdpi.com · 4 September 2026
Nutrition · Hydroponics
Calcium Chloride in the Hoagland Lifted Mustard Yield, Chlorophyll and Glucosinolates. Nothing Measured Went Down.
Five researchers at CCS Haryana Agricultural University in Hisar grew two Indian mustard genotypes, RH 1710 and RH 1975, in a nutrient film system inside a polyhouse, feeding modified Hoagland solution with 0, 10 or 20 mM calcium chloride and harvesting on day 14, three replicates each. At 20 mM, full seedling length went from 15.5 to 20.8 cm in RH 1710 and 15.9 to 21.4 cm in RH 1975. Fresh weight rose from 0.15 to 0.19 and 0.17 to 0.22 g per plant. Chlorophyll climbed from 0.82 to 1.12 and 0.98 to 1.34 mg per gram, and Fv/Fm from 0.69 to 0.82 and 0.70 to 0.85. Total glucosinolates went from 59.46 to 72.61 and 62.11 to 80.67 µmol per gram, tissue calcium rose 32.55 and 21.23 per cent, and phenolics, flavonoids, ascorbic acid and antioxidant activity all moved up, most in RH 1710. Germination, water content, protein and fibre did not move. Now the gaps. The paper reports no light level and no temperature. The abstract says seed was exposed to the salt before germination while the methods say plants were fertigated with it, and the two are never reconciled. The shelf-life benefit floated in the abstract was not tested. And a control Fv/Fm of 0.69 is on the low side for healthy tissue, which is my read, and worth holding in mind when judging the size of the gain. Published in May; the Scholar alert reached this desk on Sept. 8.
Saroha et al., Plant Science Today · doi.org · Vol. 13, No. 2, 13 May 2026
Nutrition · Brassicas
Grown to Maturity, the Same Red Cabbage Beat Its Own Microgreens on Vitamin C, Phenolics and Both Antioxidant Assays
Mehtap Özbakir Özer took one red cabbage cultivar, ‘Stampa F1’, and grew it two ways under organic conditions: as microgreens under daylight with supplementary blue or red LED, and on to mature heads. The mature cabbage came out ahead on vitamin C at 443.8 mg per 100 g, on total phenolics at 318 mg GAE per 100 g fresh weight, and on both antioxidant assays, FRAP at 1,375.8 and DPPH at 1,202.6 mmol TE per 100 g. The microgreens won on one measure, total flavonoids. Between the two lamps, blue beat red: phenolics 221 mg GAE, flavonoids 63.9 mg QE, FRAP 1,184.4 and DPPH 257.4 per 100 g. Two things to be clear about. The full paper sits behind a $64 paywall, so what is printed here is the abstract, which carries the mature-plant figures but not the matching microgreen values for vitamin C or FRAP. And this is one cultivar in one trial. It still matters, because same seed, same farm and same season is the comparison that has been missing, and this page has printed the microgreens-beat-mature finding more than once. The author’s own conclusion is measured: the LEDs made for fast sprout production, the mature heads carried more of most of what was measured, and the microgreens can still make a significant contribution to nutrition. Quote it that way.
Özbakir Özer, Biological Agriculture & Horticulture · doi.org · 2 September 2026
Monitoring · Sensors
Fifteen Cheap Sensors Logged a Microgreen Chamber Cleanly. Wi-Fi Then Lost Two Thirds of the Readings.
A University of Campinas group built three identical loggers, each an ESP32 with a TCA9548A multiplexer feeding five SHT20 temperature and humidity sensors, and ran them on three shelves of arugula microgreens through two nine-day cycles in a chamber held at 21 ± 1 °C (69.8 ± 1.8 °F). The hardware did its job. The fifteen sensors tracked one another closely, device means sat between 21.67 and 21.84 °C (71.0 and 71.3 °F), and no I2C address conflicts appeared. The network did not. Readings went over Wi-Fi to Google Sheets, and between 61.38 and 76.15 per cent of them never arrived. Completeness ran from 23.85 to 38.62 per cent of the theoretical maximum, and one device went silent for just over 24 hours in the first cycle. Signal strength read an acceptable −70 to −82 dBm throughout, which the authors take as evidence that a decent signal reading is not the same thing as reliable delivery inside a plant factory. Their fixes are the plain ones: an SD card or flash memory on the device, a private network, or a wire. Two absences worth noting. The paper calls the rig low-cost and never gives a cost, and it reports nothing about how the arugula grew. Published Sept. 1, with the data deposited openly at UNICAMP.
Osuna et al., AgriEngineering · mdpi.com · 1 September 2026
International · Brazil
A Florianópolis Farm Ships 1,500 Units a Week to 95 Outlets on R$50,000 a Month. Every Number Is Second-Hand.
Laíla Ribeiro, a lawyer, and Leonardo Corrêa, a production engineer, left São Paulo seven years ago to raise a family in Florianópolis and now run Fazendas Bioma, a closed-environment vertical farm growing microgreens to order. The figures: around 1,500 units a week, 95 points of sale, nine employees beyond the two founders, and roughly R$50,000 a month in revenue, which the article is careful to call revenue and not profit. Expansion is meant to come through franchises. All of it is second-hand. The English piece, by Carla Teles on Sept. 7, restates a PEGN report by Felipe Lessa from the day before, and says repeatedly what that report does not give: costs, capacity, what a unit is, and how the 95 outlets split between restaurants and retail. My arithmetic, not theirs: R$50,000 across eleven people is about R$4,500 a head a month before rent, power or seed, which says something about how thin a 95-outlet microgreens business can run. Two things to take. Growing to order for a fixed list of outlets rather than to a forecast is the model here, and it is the one most small growers end up at. And a farm run by a lawyer and an engineer got national coverage on volume and reach, not on a nutrition claim.
CPG Click Oil and Gas · clickpetroleoegas.com.br · 7 September 2026
Market Reports
A $9.76 Billion Microgreens Forecast Is Circulating Again. Read the Player List Before You Quote It.
A press release from Polaris Market Research, carried on openPR on Sept. 8, values the global microgreens market at $3.52 billion in 2025, $3.93 billion in 2026 and $9.76 billion by 2034, a 12.0 per cent compound rate, with North America at 42.2 per cent of the total, indoor vertical farming at 44.3 per cent by farming type and retail stores at 42.6 per cent of distribution. Before any of that goes into a business plan, read the release itself. The same headline and the same numbers appeared on openPR under an earlier news ID, so this is a re-issue. No methodology and no analyst are named. Of the fifteen “key players” listed, several read as generic descriptors rather than companies, and three, Lettuce Grow, Urban Cultivator and True Leaf Market, sell equipment and seed rather than crops. Its “recent developments” section leads with 80 Acres Farms placing product at Albertsons, Walmart and H-E-B in January 2026. Readers of last week’s issue know that 80 Acres filed for Chapter 7 on Aug. 25 with $112 million in secured claims. None of this makes the forecast wrong, and market reports are not built to be right; they are built to be bought. It does mean the $9.76 billion figure is a sales document for a paid report, and it should be quoted, if at all, with that label on it.
Polaris Market Research via openPR · openpr.com · 8 September 2026
Farmers Markets · Fraud
The Vendor-Application Scam Reached Kelowna, With AI Behind the Emails and a $600 Loss
Frances Callaghan, executive director of the Kelowna Farmers’ and Crafters’ Market, told Castanet on Sept. 10 that fraudulent vendor applications have ramped up and that she believes the emails are being written with AI. The mechanism is simple. A message from a false address says applications are open, apply now, put your deposit down and you are in. The addresses sit close enough to the ones the Kelowna market, Peachland and other events really use that vendors pay. She knows one man who lost $600. Karalyn Lockhard, who runs Craft Culture markets in the area, said a vendor had told her the day before that she had fallen for it and was embarrassed: “if you’re not looking for it, it’s really hard.” Callaghan calls it a problem across B.C. and says organisers are banding together. The same week, on the other side of the continent, the Town of Lady Lake in Florida announced its Tuesday market reopening Oct. 6 with 60 vendors and added two things in the same breath: vendor spaces for the season are already full, and people are claiming to collect fees on the town’s behalf. Last week this page carried Airdrie, Alberta. Three markets in three weeks. The defence is the same everywhere: check the sending domain against the market’s own site, and if there is any doubt, telephone before a cent moves.
Castanet · castanet.net · 10 September 2026 | WFTV · wftv.com · 6 September 2026
Farmers Markets · Data
Washington Farmers Markets Hit $96 Million in 2025 Sales, and $47 Million of It Came From Farm Vendors
Kyle Odegard’s Sept. 8 feature for Capital Press puts figures on a channel most readers of this page already depend on. The United States has roughly 8,500 farmers markets, up from fewer than 500 before 1970, by the Farmers Market Coalition’s count. In Washington, about 100 of the state’s 165 markets reported sales of nearly $96 million in 2025, $47 million of it from farm vendors, both records and up 13 per cent on the year, with attendance up 11 per cent to 4.8 million, according to Colleen Donovan of the Washington State Farmers Market Association. Oregon’s roughly 160 market locations drew 4.1 million visits and $61 million in sales in 2023. Idaho has 60. Nearly $10 million in food-assistance benefits moved through Oregon and Washington markets in the most recent year counted, and a Washington survey found half of small farms work more than one market a week. Two lines to keep. Ariel Agenbroad of University of Idaho Extension calls the market “that first point of entry in small business development.” Donovan’s is shorter: “We need to keep the farmers in farmers markets.” Read the Washington split once more. Farm vendors were just under half of a record year. The other half was everyone else on the same lot, and that is the crowd a microgreens stall competes with for the same shopper’s twenty dollars.
Capital Press · capitalpress.com · 8 September 2026
Most growers are guessing. The ones who stop start by knowing their number.
One report run on Clarksville, Tennessee returned 47 named buyers within 10 miles and 6 local microgreens growers already working them. Yours pulls the same data for your postcode or ZIP: 40 to 60 restaurants, grocers, cafes and juice bars ranked by fit, the competitors and the channels they leave open, a revenue ceiling from buyer count and income tier, and two 90-day plans. Delivered as a PDF. Results vary by location and what local business data exists.
One payment. If it comes back without a buyer list, a revenue ceiling and your competitors, email it back inside thirty days for a full refund and keep your copy.
Educational only. No income is promised.
Telephone Before You Pay a Deposit
Kelowna’s market director says scam application emails now sit a character or two from the real ones, and one vendor is out $600. Before any market deposit leaves your account, check the sending domain against the market’s own website, then ring the organiser. Sixty seconds.
Get a Mineral Assay Before a Mineral Claim
The Aberdeen trial’s smoothie carried 1.8 mg of iron per 30 g serving, measured, and the ferritin result is still unpublished. If you biofortify anything, send a sample to a lab for mg per 100 g before the word iron goes near a label, and keep the words treat and prevent off it entirely.
Put an SD Card in the Logger
A tidy fifteen-sensor rig lost 61 to 76 per cent of its readings to Wi-Fi, with signal strength reading fine throughout. If your chamber logger only writes to the cloud, open last week’s data and look for gaps. Then add local storage before you trust a graph again.
Test 20 mM Calcium Chloride on One Channel
In nutrient film mustard, 20 mM CaCl2 in the Hoagland raised seedling length a third and chlorophyll by roughly the same. Hydroponic growers only: dose one channel, leave one plain, weigh both at day 14, and note that the paper never states its light or temperature.
Name the Compound, Not the Multiple
One red cabbage cultivar grown to maturity beat its own microgreens on vitamin C, phenolics and both antioxidant assays. The microgreens won on flavonoids. Before “more nutritious” goes on a label or a stall sign, say which compound and which comparison you mean.
Watch for Paling After a Blue Blast
Under a heavy blue dose, sunflower and radish showed stress inside two hours and barley took ten, and the canopy paling reversed once the light came off. If you finish trays under strong blue, check them at the two-hour mark rather than the next morning.
Sept. 12–13, 2026
Fascination of Plants Day, Portici · Royal Palace botanical garden, Naples. Microgreens cultivation session by C. El Nakhel. Open to the public at no charge.
Sept. 18, 2026
WVFMA Mini-Grant Deadline · Up to $5,000 per West Virginia market for signage, tents, POS gear, coolers. Members only, one application per market.
Sept. 25, 2026
Des Moines Winter Market Applications Close · Downtown Winter Farmers’ Market, Capital Square, Nov. 20–22. Farmers, producers and makers.
Through Sept. 29, 2026
Gig Harbor Waterfront Farmers Market · New Tuesday evening market, 4 to 7 p.m., about a dozen vendors, food and produce only.
Oct. 3, 2026
Jefferson County First Saturday Market Opens · Monticello, Florida, courthouse lot, 8 a.m. to noon monthly. Vendor applications at tinyurl.com/jcfm-app.
Oct. 6, 2026
Lady Lake Farmers and Crafts Market Reopens · Tuesdays 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., 60 vendors. Season spots are already full; the town warns of fake fee collectors.
Cilantro won the taste panel. We printed the part it lost.
A customer picks up your punnet, checks the price, and asks what makes it worth seven dollars. You get about three seconds.
Fifty-four tasters rated twelve species side by side. Coriander took the joint highest score and the best looking tray of the lot. It also finished twenty-first of twenty-five for vitamin C. Saying the second half out loud is what makes the first half land.
Guide No. 05 hands you both halves, the six questions a buyer asks at a stall, and three printed sheets carrying your farm name.
Commercial license $47. Personal edition $7. Every figure traced to a table in the source paper, and reissued when the research moves.
Find yours. The Market Finder maps markets near you and flags the ones carrying microgreens. No signup, no account. Pick one and go.
Works on your phone
