natural lighting for vertical farming

Model for lighting between racks in vertical farming

intro

Vertical farming or vertical agriculture, consists of a vertical growth of the cultivation space, doubling, tripling or even five times the cultivable area, and as addition this technique allows the saving of water resources up to 99% compared to traditional agriculture since the water can be reused (hydroponic or aeroponic systems), the level of evaporation is reduced, the level of oxygenation of roots increases, by so the growth of the plant is much faster than with other substrates ¹. In general greenhouses, however, seldom use these vertical farming systems and techniques, where there are good reasons for this, which on of them is the limitation of the amount of natural light reaching crops placed on lower levels, forcing growers to rely more heavily on supplemental lighting, which in turn increases production costs of vertical farming systems ². But there is a greenhouse which is also a vertical farming, whose name is Shockingly Fresh in Offenham, England, where it can produce four-times the yield compared with regular farming, while using much less energy than other vertical farms, since it is using only natural light for photosynthesis and heat, and not a closed system like others ³.

And about the light source, natural light is light that is generated naturally, the common source of which is the Sun, which is as opposed to artificial light, which is typically produced by electrical appliances such as lamps ⁴. At least nine strategies for optimizing light in vertical farms are available, where using natural light is one of them ⁵. For more complex and large structures like skyscraper farms modeling natural light availability is required ⁶.

This post is triggered by an offer of experimenting of producing diffused light for vertical farming racks in certain arrangement ⁷, which the purpose of it is to distribute natural or artificial light evenly ⁸. One way to make it, instead of using diffusion filter, a diffusion panel seems more practical and there is information to produce it ⁹. The panel must also match the vertical systems, since there are some variations available ¹⁰.

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