2018 ASHS Annual Conference

Indoor vertical farming has been gaining momentum as the demand for healthy, fresh, and local produce keeps increasing. Its high productivity is enabled by technologies such as environmental control, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), sensors, and automation. We recently renovated a storage room on the campus of Michigan State University to become the Controlled-Environment Lighting Laboratory (CELL), which is a vertical farming research facility developed to improve indoor production of leafy greens and ornamental transplants. It consists of two independent and environmentally controlled 12.3-m² compartments, each containing four growing racks with three 0.7-m² shelves stacked vertically in a deep-flow recirculating hydroponic system. OSRAM Innovation developed customized and integrated LED hardware and software that precisely deliver light intensities and qualities to each plant canopy. Each LED module has seven independently controlled radiation channels (peak wavelengths = 386, 449, 526, 559, 639, 664, and 733 nm), allowing simultaneous tests of numerous spectral combinations. The LED fixtures are programmable in real time for demonstrations or in advance for scheduling experiments. Environmental sensors are incorporated in CELL to monitor photosynthetically active radiation, air and leaf temperatures, relative humidity, and CO₂ concentration. In addition to research, CELL supports outreach activities and undergraduate teaching and captures the interest of visitors and students, who can see research in action from the corridor through the large windows of CELL.