ISHS Hort Forum Episode 9: Vertical farming: a fair story versus a fairy tale

Vertical farming allows production of fresh vegetables in a standardized way at any place including the most urbanised regions of the world or places with extreme climate (desert, arctic). The use of LED light and the full control of both the aboveground and belowground conditions in combination with the right cultivars, enables growers to produce products with extra added value, which appeal to the demand of consumers for safe, reliable, and tasty food. Vertical farming is extremely sustainable with respect to water, fertilizers, pesticides and land use, but has a high usage of electricity. After an initial hype with very large capital investment in vertical farms, in recent years many vertical farms went bankrupt. On the other hand some vertical farms are still expanding and new vertical farms are still starting up.
In this presentation Leo Marcelis will first describe the rise and fall of vertical farming during the last 10 years and what the driving factors were. Then Leo will describe productivity and environmental performance of vertical farms. Subsequently the speaker will discuss some physiological, developmental and morphological responses of crops to light (intensity, spectrum, position, photoperiod) and will provide a number of examples how to use different lighting strategies to control yield and quality of plants produced in vertical farms and to reduce the energy use.