From the last few decades, the population is growing at an enormous rate. Just for reference, the world’s population is expected to grow by over 9.7 billion. With the rise of population, the demand for the food supply is also increased. Moreover, due to industrial development and urbanization, the arable land is gradually decreased. Tractors play a vital role in crop production to maintain a proper food supply. Sonalika 750 tractor is the most productive tractor model for farming. However, to resolve this problem, vertical farming is one of the best farming practices and might be the future of agriculture.

Through vertical farming, the farmer can produce a significant and consistent quality of crop yield. In this blog, we get to know about why vertical farming is important and what are their major benefits.

What is the Vertical Farming Method?

Vertical farming is a farming practice of producing food on a vertically inclined surface. Instead of producing vegetables and other food items on the field or greenhouse, this method of farming produces the food in vertically stacked layers commonly integrated into other structures such as a skyscraper, shipping containers or repurposed warehouse.

Vertical farming involves the concept of using Controlled Environment Agriculture(CEA) technology, an indoor farming technique. The well manual or automatic control over the temperature, light, humidity, and gases makes indoor food production possible. For instance, vertical farming is much similar to the greenhouse, where the metal reflectors and artificial lighting replicates natural sunlight. The primary goals of vertical farming are maximizing the overall crop input in the limited space.

What are the Important Features of Vertical Farming?

Understanding the concept of vertical farming involves four major features. These includes

. Physical Layout

In vertical farming, there are many ways to grow the crop. The physical layout is typically in towers, or farmers may use horizontal structure stacked on top of each other. Remembering the primary goals of vertical farming is to produce more foods per square metre. To accomplish this, crops are also grown along walls known as green walls. Some farms are grown within modular containers as well.

. Lightning

Proper lighting is one of the major aspects of the vertical farming method. However, there are few tricks to replicate the natural light when farming indoors. This farming practice requires powerful lighting to grow the crop. The perfect combination of natural and artificial lights are used to maintain the perfect light level in the room.

Fluorescent lights are most commonly used for growing herbs and vegetables indoors. High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lamps are used to grow commercial crops. Moreover, LED lights are the most energy-efficient among others. These types of lights do not produce heat which later harms the crop.

. Growing Medium

Vertical farming systems involve the use of a variety of growing mediums to harvest their crops. For instance, Hydroponics uses a soil-free system by planting the plants in a nutrient-rich solution. Peat moss or coconut husks and similar non -soil mediums are the most common in vertical farming.

Aeroponics, another growing medium uses no soil and very little water to grow plants. It is the most efficient way to grow using mists of water applied directly to the roots of plants. Lettuce, herbs and strawberries are the best used in Aeroponics.

. Sustainability Features

The vertical farming method uses various sustainability features to offset the energy cost of farming. In fact, vertical farming uses significantly less water, approx 95% less.

What are the Advantages of Vertical Farming?

This farming practice ensures consistent crop production; hence it is extremely reliable. This is further possible because vertical farming doesn’t rely on the weather, allowing farmers to cultivate crops without worrying about the adverse weather condition.

Conventional farming requires several acres of land. While vertical farming doesn’t have any such prerequisite condition. This enables you to design and build these farms in almost every location and climate. Another remarkable quality of this farming method is its stacking growth system.

The produced crop needs to be shipped across multiple countries. Whereas vertical farming poses no such issue. As mentioned earlier, the crop can be grown anywhere; you can choose to grow the crop where the demand is high. Hence reduce a whole lot of transportation cost.

Vertical farming could be completely automated and doesn’t require massive labour. This method of farming only requires an individual even with low skills.

In this farming method, there is a higher chance of completely cutting down the need for pesticides. This prevents crop damage and also reduces the chance of developing fungal ailments as the humidity levels are now duly managed.

It helps to ensure higher crop production. This mode of farming enables the cultivator to produce crops consistently, even in a small area.

This is all about vertical farming, including their benefits and essential requirements. We hope you get enough information, and this blog helps you to start a highly profitable farming business. For information about farming related news and Sonalika tractor price, stay tuned with us.