Crop performance targets for cost-competitive vertical farming
Source: VFD.com
Crop performance targets for cost-competitive vertical farming Vertical farming may offer a scalable solution to land, water, and climate constraints in agriculture, yet its viability hinges on reducing energy and capital costs. High energy use, labour requirements and investment costs raise concerns about both economic feasibility and environmental sustainability.
Vertical farming is a form of controlled-environment agriculture in which light, temperature, humidity, CO₂ concentration, irrigation, fertilisation and crop management can, in principle, be adjusted independently, enabling reproducible cultivation recipes that deliver consistent yield and quality. Three sink scenarios (Current, Current+, NextGen) are evaluated together with six levels of intercepted light-use efficiency (LUEINT = 0.8–1.8 g DW mol⁻¹ PAR), resulting in 18 scenarios per crop.
Production costs are compared with Dutch greenhouse benchmarks from KWIN 2023. Results show that cost reduction depends primarily on increasing effective daily light integral and converting light efficiently into biomass through higher light interception and LUEINT.
Why this matters: For operators, this is a water-management story. The useful signal is that direct substrate measurements can help cut drain loss materially without giving up yield or fruit quality, which is exactly the kind of controllable efficiency gain a facility can build on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does substrate sensing matter in free-drain strawberry systems?
Because drain percentage tells a grower what already happened, while substrate moisture and EC data show root-zone conditions directly. That makes it easier to cut water loss without guessing.
What is the operator takeaway from this trial?
If the thresholds are understood well enough, growers can reduce drain water materially while protecting yield and fruit quality, which makes sensing an operational tool instead of a reporting tool.
