Researcher says more needs to be done to cultivate vertical farming’s potential 

The University of Queensland’s Professor of Protected Cropping, Paul Gauthier, has said technological solutions, for example around energy use, and a change of mindset are needed to help controlled environment agriculture live up to its potential and feed a growing population.

In a statement from the university on Wednesday, Gauthier mentioned long-term thinking and a new approach to plant science – treating it as a separate discipline – as parts of the answer.

“What we already know about how plants grow does not entirely apply to vertical farming situations which my research has already proven,” he said.

“I managed to get strawberries to produce 6 kilograms per plant when everybody was saying that the maximum you could produce in a greenhouse was 2 kilograms.

“I multiplied the strawberry yield by 3 by modifying the environment and pushing them to the limit.

“We have seen that as well with wheat where controlling the environment in a certain way increases yield by speeding up production, so instead of one or two harvests a year you could have five.”

Technological solutions were one part of making such farming more useful, for example in the use of sensors and lights being used in tandem with photosynthesis, and to exploit cheaper energy during off-peak periods.

“If we are to increase food production by as much as 70 per cent by 2050, we need to look at things differently, added the professor, who said vertical farming allowed for this.

Gauthier is a co-author on a paper in the journal Frontiers in Science – “Vertical farming goes dynamic: optimizing resource use efficiency, product quality, and energy costs” – which can be accessed at this link.

Picture: Indoor Hydroponics of Morus, Japan (credit Satoshi KINOKUNI, CC BY 2.0)