Vertical farms offer the possibility to cultivate crops in a fully controlled environment regardless of the external climate and geographical location. This higher level of control for plant growth has the potential to give consistent and standardized products and yields anywhere in the world as long as we follow the same growing recipe. Current growing recipes are developed from farm set points and they are shared among the different farms expecting the same results.
 | 4 December 2024 |  |
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However, practical experiences show that this approach gives different outputs for each farm indicating that something is wrong. In this project, a consortium of companies with different vertical farming systems investigated why we achieve different crops when growing with the same cultivation recipe on different farms. We executed a set of comparative cultivation trials of a lettuce crop using the same set points and we collected measurements to identify what is causing our crops to grow differently. Our results also gave us insight into how we could develop standard and reproducible cultivation knowledge for Indoor Vertical Farms, especially given the lack of standardized farming systems in this sector.
Laura Bautista (Project Leader at Delphy Improvement Centre B.V.) presents this topic while she is driven by Innovation, sustainability, resilient systems, and food security.
About Laura Bautista
Laura Bautista is the Project Leader of Vertical Farming at Delphy where she focuses on helping commercial Indoor/Vertical Farms be more efficient and profitable in their crop production processes. She works on research and consultancy projects for public and private parties, as well as companies consortium. She holds a Ph.D. in Plant Pathology and International Agriculture from the Pennsylvania State University (U.S.) and a Bachelor’s and Master of Science degrees in Agricultural Sciences and Engineering from the University of Cordoba (Spain).
About Delphy Improvement Centre B.V.
Delphy stands for Worldwide Expertise for Food & Flowers. Delphy is therefore the company in knowledge and expertise for our partners in the plant-based sectors worldwide. Because we want to contribute to health, food safety, sustainability and well-being for people on earth. With knowledge development and knowledge implementation, Delphy makes it possible to optimize production in food & flowers worldwide. Delphy experts share their knowledge and expertise with our partners to achieve their objectives and improve results.
For more information go to the website.
Laura Bautista will speak at the 2023 edition of the Agrifood Innovation Event.