December 2020 - 39

CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT AGRICULTURE
Vertical farming makes the most of limited space
By Dee Shore
North Carolina State University
To increase agricultural yields, a
North Carolina State University College
of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS)
horticultural scientist and his students
are literally looking up. They want
to know if growing plants indoors in
vertically stacked layers could be part of
the solution to feeding a fast-growing
world population as farmland becomes
scarcer.
Ricardo Hernandez, a leading
expert on growing plants in controlled
environments, is exploring ways to
make vertical farming profitable and
sustainable. He and his students have
modified a donated shipping container
to grow produce and herbs on campus.
Mark Watson, who graduated in
May, says that indoor vertical farming
has several advantages. It allows for
year-round production, and it's less
susceptible to weather extremes. It
can also be used in urban settings,
potentially reducing food losses that
occur in getting crops from rural farms
to tables.
Still, substantial challenges remain.
Indoor production requires significant
Horticultural scientist Ricardo Hernandez and Mark Watson work with lettuce plants inside the vertical farm near the JC Raulston
Arboretum. Photo: North Carolina State University
energy, which pushes farmers' costs up.
Watson hadn't heard of vertical
farming before he took Hernandez's
controlled-environment horticulture
class in 2019. He went on to win
a national award for independent
research on the best temperature and
humidity to allow tomato plants to heal
indoors after being grafted onto the
rootstocks of other plants.
He also served as president of North
Carolina State's Vertical Farms Club,
which is testing leafy greens and other
food crops in the shipping container
and exploring marketing opportunities.
The club includes students in
horticulture, plant and microbial biology,
crop and soil sciences, electrical and
computer engineering, and mechanical
and aerospace engineering.
Hernandez sees possibilities for
farmers to raise high-value seedlings
in vertical farms. As he explains,
" Using a controlled environment can
be key, because we can grow plants
in high density and manipulate the
environment - the lighting, the
temperature, air movements and carbon
dioxide concentrations - to produce the
best seedlings possible. " VGN
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VGN | DECEMBER 2020 | 39

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December 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of December 2020

December 2020 - 1
December 2020 - 2
December 2020 - 3
December 2020 - 4
December 2020 - 5
December 2020 - 6
December 2020 - 7
December 2020 - 8
December 2020 - 9
December 2020 - 10
December 2020 - 11
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December 2020 - 47
December 2020 - 48
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