Vertical Farming — the next big conquest for IoT:
-By Suyash Gupta
Planty Cube is a revolutionary step forward for the novel and innovative idea that is vertical farming and can even be considered the next evolutionary step for farming systems in general. This ingenious application of embedded systems is the epitome of the pervasiveness of IoT applications in modern industries. This blog aims to explore this idea of vertical farming, the necessity for its implementation, and how it can be enhanced using IoT highlighted by this example system — Planty Cube.
What is vertical farming? — And Why do we need it? –
Vertical farming is a new method of cultivating crops born as most innovations are — out of necessity. As the population of humans grows further every day, expected to grow and eventually plateau at the staggeringly large figure of 9 Billion, A major challenge this presents us with is the sustainable management of resources, especially crops and food. Conventional farming methods are not very efficient as these methods require vast amounts of arable land which is running low at an ever-increasing rate, and also huge volumes of water are used up for watering plants out of which only a small percent of it is actually necessary.
Vertical farming aims to solve these issues by adding an extra dimension to the space in which crops can be grown and also use efficient methods in terms of resources used and space taken to grow crops.
What it would take to feasibly implement a vertical farming system –
Vertical farming would be implemented in stacks within indoor settings such as warehoused and skyscrapers and would be built in appearance, not unlike an indoor form one could make in Minecraft.
However, there are some critical factors that play into making such a system feasible such as the layout — which most often involves horizontal planes stacked vertically producing an increased yield. The most crucial element of these systems is arguably the lighting required by the plants in order to grow, and since there have been many advancements in led technologies, these can be implemented efficiently to provide the necessary radiations in the form of wavelengths in the blue and red range for the effective growth of crops. And finally, the medium in which crops will be grown will most likely involve hydroponics in which a plant will be submerged in a nutrient-rich water solution which could be circulated and reused.
How IoT can enhance this already inventive idea –
The implementation of IoT will allow for vertical farms to be more modular, having settings for different breeds of plants to be grown in such systems, and in addition to this, the computerization of such systems will allow for the monitoring of the health of the crops being grown.
As such, this data can be collected within a database and be used to formulate the appropriate settings required for the plant to thrive. The system would be able to control the lighting provided to the crops, the irrigation, humidity, and temperature to optimally suit the plant in question. This system will allow for the efficient growth of crops and would be able to decide the right growing conditions for the crops in a smart manner, serving as a fully automated sustainable farming system that is easy to maintain.
Challenges faced by automated Vertical Farming systems –
While, it is not difficult to understand the numerous advantages that such vertical farming systems can have, there are also a few apprehensible issues in these systems which must be addressed. Integrating something like this with IoT will lead to us having greater dependence on networks and technology which could lead to large-scale issues when systems like this fail or experience bugs of some sort. In addition to this, the added complexities involved would result in a greater need for maintenance.
How far this Idea has come, and what we can expect in the future–
Despite the aforementioned issues mentioned these systems’ benefits far outweigh the negatives and as such this system has already seen a fair amount of success. For instance, AeroFarms has repurposed a steel mill to serve the purpose of vertical farming as its largest iteration in the world and now harvest up to two million pounds of crops each year.
This is a prime example of how this idea can be brought into the mainstream and in the future, we might be able to see even more companies adopt this style of producing crops, perhaps with more enhanced IoT systems to assist the farm. And in the near future, it may not be too absurd to see entire skyscrapers dedicated to this ambitious and ingenious purpose.
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In conclusion, implementing vertical farming methods and even having such systems replace traditional farming, in the long run, would allow us to save more land and resources in the process of producing crops. This, in turn, would allow us to have more healthy yields and be able to provide greater accessibility to food for most of the world’s population. Further accentuating this idea and enhancing vertical farming systems are IoT based solutions such as Planty Cube at the forefront of this revolution, allowing the automation of these systems, making the management of such systems easier and helping the operation of such farms massively.
Such an Idea will undoubtedly bring promising and bountiful results in the future and will completely reshape our idea of farming and producing food.
References:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBleQycVanU&list=PLBTrWbLcO_tkuW44Zr4XSwDD9Ekqm6n4V&index=4&t=4s
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/1.5002039
http://www.mintcontrols.com/vertical-farming-iot/
https://www.designboom.com/technology/the-planty-cube-vertical-farming-system-ces-01-14-2020/
https://edgy.app/planty-cube-offers-smart-farming-alternative
