Vertical Farming 101

What is Vertical Farming? 

“Vertical farming is the practice of growing crops in vertically stacked layers. It often incorporates controlled-environment agriculture, which aims to optimize plant growth, and soilless farming techniques such as hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics.” - Wikipedia

A Brief Overview of Vertical Farming

For pretty much all of Time, plants have been confined to growing in soil, and therefore have had to grow horizontally–roots down, stems and leaves up. Hydroponic farming changes all that. By isolating the nutrients and minerals from the soil and adding them directly into the water, plants are able to grow without relying on soil, giving rise to the practice of “vertical farming”.

The Advantages of Vertical Farming 

By 2050, the global population is set to surpass 9.7 billion people, representing a growth rate of 26%, while the amount of arable land available to us continues to decline due to industrial development and urbanization. Over the past 40 years, we have already lost about one-third of the arable land on the planet, which paired with this rate of population growth presents a very real problem of how we will feed everyone. 

Vertical farming can counteract this problem in two ways. First, vertical farming operations require no soil, meaning plants can grow indoors in areas where there is no longer any arable land. Second, the process of growing vertically–whether through plant orientation or stacking–makes it possible to grow a lot of food in a relatively small space.

The Nursery Station

All our plants start by growing horizontally in two stacked seedling troughs in the Nursery Station. We use this method for the seedlings because growing vertically (‘out’, instead of ‘up’) puts more of a strain on the plant’s stem since the plant needs to fight gravity harder. For this reason, putting seedlings directly into a vertical position can cause damage to the young stems and negatively impact their development. The nursery station can support up to 4,608 baby plants at a time. The plants remain in the nursery station for 14-21 days until they’ve developed sturdy stems and small leaves, after which they’re ready to move into their next home: the Cultivation Area.

The Cultivation Area

Once seedlings have spent two to three weeks in the Nursery Station, their stems are strong enough to handle the vertical arrangement in the Cultivation Area. The Greenery S Cultivation Area can hold over 8,000 plants in 88 of our proprietary high-density five-channel plant panels. The lightweight and sturdy removable panels are shaped from food-safe, high-impact polystyrene. More than any other feature, these panels maximize vertical farming potential in the farm, unlocking options for new crop possibilities, simplifying workflow, and maximizing yields. The five-channel design allows you to customize crop arrangements based on plant size and to optimize Greenery S production by activating unused space between the plants.

Hydroponics: This is the method used in the Greenery. Plant roots are fed water directly using nutrient-rich water. Learn more about hydroponics

Aquaponics: Aquaponics uses fish and plants in a symbiotic combination in which plants are fed the aquatic animals’ discharge or waste.

Aeroponics: Plant roots hang suspended in the air and are periodically misted with the nutrient solution.

Personal: This is a method of food production that you typically see in people’s homes. It includes a few towers, panels, or stacks that grow enough to feed a few people, but are not viable for commercial use.

Container: This is the method used in the Greenery. The containers are used to create commercial-scale farms in small spaces where the growing square footage is increased many times over with vertical farming setups. Learn more about container farming

Building: Some larger farming companies, such as AeroFarms or Plenty, retrofit entire buildings with vertical farming growing structures to create indoor plant warehouses.