"We have more students wanting projects than we currently have to offer them"
Source: VFD.com
Agriculture students are exploring what can replace commercial fertilisers in controlled growing conditions, while their wildlife ecology peers are using the same system to model what certain forage plants might look like nutritionally in twenty or fifty years' time, under elevated CO2 levels. One piece of a wider ecosystem A year ago, the institution installed IAG's GrowFrame360 as the centrepiece of its Vertical Growing Research Centre, funded by a grant from the Department for Education's Local Skills Improvement Fund (LSIF), with additional support from University Centre Sparsholt for building modifications.
"What we're always keen to do is make the student projects absolutely live and relevant so that we're generating the next group of experts to go into the field." Vertical farming sits within a wider agri-technology ecosystem that already includes robotic dairies, remote sensing and weather stations. Darren describes the Vertical Growing Research Centre as one of only two vertical farms available at a UK educational institution.
"It is one of the key recent investments that we've made which allows us to run a research facility that enables our students to work with industrial partners to understand what their challenges are and how they can overcome them." From theory to placement to live challenge The student programme is structured to move quickly from classroom to industry. The third year centres on a six-month project tackling live challenges, with a focus on regenerative agriculture and sustainable systems.
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.
