V-Farm
Increasing Agricultural Dependability whilst Reducing Ecological Impact through Vertical Farming
"V-Farm is a fully controllable, vertical farming concept which is completely bespoke to your needs. Whether you have a rooftop in Canada, a warehouse in Hong Kong or even a station in space, a V-Farm can be developed to work for you!
The concept has been developed with a modular structure of mobile racks fitted with gully trays so that it can be completely tailored to fit the available space.
The V-Farm system uses the latest hydroponic technology along with Valoya LED lighting and bespoke ventilation equipment in order to be adaptable to most environments.
The environment can be fully controlled using market-leading AutoGrow Multigrow systems via PC, tablet or smartphone and is a truly sustainable growing solution fit for the 21st Century.
This versatile system is non crop-specific, allowing it to be adapted for growing a wide variety of fruit, salad greens and vegetables."
Why do we need this?
It can be installed everywhere, allowing us to grow even in cities or in conditions where it would be impossible otherwise, even in space!
The overall ecological footprint is low. Is uses less water than conventional agriculture and can be combined with hydroponic systems. It uses no pesticides.
This could be used in restaurants for guaranteed fresh food!
How does it work?
"Farm is an Arduino based system which consists of two main parts. The Grow Control Unit or GCU houses the micro-controller and circuitry and the rack which grows the plants under OLEDs and contains various sensors as well as the water pump and circuit. The GCU uses a 5" touch screen with a custom user interface designed and tested to be easy to use in an industrial setting. The interface displays all the environmental parameters real time as both figures and bar charts as well as the maximum and minimum extremes recorded during the grow. The screen displays the various timers to indicate when the lights, pump, and fan are next to turn on or off. Manual controls allow the grower to change crop pre-sets and turn on/off each component. The rack houses OLEDs which the microgreens grow under in trays. The trays are designed to be easily removable to facilitate quick turnaround in a full scale farm. The grower need only sow the seed and leave vFarm to do the rest."
Future Plans
To develop an internet based control system.
Where can I buy this?
The product is patented and awardwinning, but isn't yet on the market.
For further information check out the products website
http://www.v-farm.co.uk/vydrofarm-attend-greentech-2016/
or the latest award nomination: https://www.jamesdysonaward.org/2018/project/vfarm/
The V-Farm is created by Jonathan Reader
Pictures and quotes are taken from the websites mentioned above.