We are seeing more and more of controlled environment farming across the globe, especially as the focus around sustainability continues.
In the controlled industry environment, there are three tiers of plants, says Rick Langille, founder and CEO of Harvest Today.
Tier one is leafy greens and herbs. Tier two is anything that is fruiting — such as cucumbers, tomatoes, chilis, and peppers. Tier three is rices, cereal, grains, and corn.
The focus, says Langille, for many controlled environments is tier two growing — the bloomers — which is where the Harvest Wall, shown at Canada’s Farm Show at Regina, Sask., comes in.
“The harvest wall was created to be a scalable, modular system. It clicks together like Lego blocks. So we can build these five tiles high, which would make it roughly seven feet tall. And then we can do them 12 tiles wide, which would be roughly nine feet wide,” he explains in the video below, showing the double sided demo. “So we have plants on both sides. This would have 720 plants in 16 square feet.”
The system can easily get eight crops a year, says Langille, and actually helps combat diseases, especially in some of the leafier greens.
“We can grow to maturity and harvest an entire head of lettuce. No more salmonella. No more diseases that are coming from what we’re getting from soil,” he says.
Check out the full conversation with Langille, and RealAgriculture’s Brittany Warner, below:
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