The only way is up for vertical crop technology
While the notion of total control of the growing environment might seem like a distant dream to cropping farmers this year, a futuristic venture launched yesterday promises just such a possibility.
In a major project designed to showcase the technology, Scotland’s first vertical farm was officially launched yesterday at a research station outside Dundee.
Technology company, Integrated Growth Solutions (IGS), has built four tower structures where their ground-breaking Total Controlled Environmentalagriculture(tcea) system will demonstrated and refined at the James Hutton Research Institute at Invergowrie.
IGS chief executive, David Farquhar, said that the company would partner closely with the Hutton in developing new applications for the system which grows plants which are stacked on trays in carefully controlled sealed chambers:
“The system gives the grower control over the key aspects of growing crops – light and temperature, water and humidity, the Co2/oxygen balance and nutrient supply. The system can be tweaked to provide the ideal growing conditions for a wide range of crops – and effectively allows the farms to create his own weather!”
Farquhar said that while it was likely that the system would initially be used to grow high value crops such as herbs, leafy salads and even medicinal crops the technology was likely to filter down the system as components became cheaper, mirroring recent trends and developments in computer controls and LED technology.
The provision of lowcost artificial light in the system allows crops to be stacked – with each tray providing the lighting for the plants below: “This means that each unit has 25 trays stacked one above the other –and the units can be staked as high as the structure which they are attached to allows. This means that a lot of crop can be grown in a small area of ground space.”
He said that while the demonstration unit was on a specially built series of towers, the system was ideally suited for towns and cities where existing structures such as domestic and retail buildings such as supermarkets could grow their own crops for sale or consumption: “And as we are controlling the plants’ environment, it is just as at home in Saudi Arabia as it is in Scotland.”
One key component in the system has been the developments in LED lighting technology over the past ten years which allows not only the right levels of light to be provided for the plants at their various growing stages, but also at the correct wavelengths.
Farquhar said: “While plants obviously thrive on white light they only use certain parts of the spectrum to grow.”