A brief introduction to vertical farming

Introduction to Vertical Farming

Hello friends, iam going to start a project on vertical farming. As a part of my project, i wanted to share the things from time to time with you so that i can interact with the other buddies and know their views and ideas on this project.

             As we know that day by day the world population is increasing as a result most of the land area is used for domestic and industrial purposes. In order to meet these requirements even agricultural area is converted in to domestic land. Due to this the prices of the food products increased dramatically. Now a days cultivation of crops by traditional methods is becoming very difficult. As a result there is a great necessity to modify this methods. Now a days green houses are playing a major role in cultivating small crops like leafy vegitables and other small plants.

   A step forward in green house cultivation led to new method that is "VERTICAL FARMING". In vertical farming these are the important points according to my knowledge:

1. It does not require soil which prevents the diseases that spread through soil.

2. It uses less water i.e about 80% to 90% of the water that is required to cultivate the same crop on land.

3. Even though the initial investment seem to be a bit high, the returns or earnings from this method are enormous i.e. 50 to 80 percent more than the maximum amount that can be gained.

4. It requires less labour and with growing innovation in smart monitoring technologies the need for regular monitoring is almost completely eliminated.

5. The taste of the vegetables or fruits will remain the same independent of season given the greatness of artificial climatic conditions created inside the farm house which improves the quality of crop.

                       Apart from the things i have mentioned above there are many advantages of vertical farming. Comming to technical part, the vertical farm is nothing but a single or multi floor building where plants will be grown in a specially arranged racks. As i mentioned above that in vertical farming plants are not cultivated in soil the actually use the following:

                                                                                                                 1. Aeroponics.

                                                                                                                 2. Hydroponics.

                                                                                                                 3. Aquaponics.

       These methods will be explained in my next post in detail as it is only an introduction.

They also use specialised lighting to facilitate the plants with appropriate lighting. Recent advances in research have indicated that the plants grow faster and produce good yield when they are exposed to light containing more BLUE and RED spectrum. Turns out that RED and BLUE colour spectrum lights have enough energy to carry out photosynthesis at a higher rate.

         None of the products or by-products produced in these vertical farms are trown out as waste they can be recycled for the development and the natural resources like rainwater, sun light etc can be effectively used by making necessary developments gradually.

  

No presence of insects or pests from

 surroundings which damage the crop. 

No requirement of pesticides due to abscence of insects or pests.

        This the area which is to be adopted and implemented to benifit the farmers and people. This will be the future of farming i.e. "Vertical farming is the Next Generation of Farming".

        The complete process and methodologies will be explained in the up coming posts individually in detail.Thank You.