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  • Author Author: jmbranco76
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Modular Farm Blog: Post 17 – Plant Growth

jmbranco76

Hi vertical farmers,

 

In the previous post we published our repositories for Silicon Labs firmware and KiCad boards. In this post we will discuss the growth of our lettuces.

 

This has been a very interesting learning process that lead to some reactive improvements on our setup, mainly related to our lighting system.

 

Our hydroponic system has two allotments of 40 plants each (top/bottom). We started growing on the top floor with an equal ratio of DeepBlue (DB-450nm), HyperRed (HR-650nm) and FarRed (FR-730nm) with a total power of 20 W while we used double of the LEDs on the bottom floor. The results on the growing were so clear after one week that we had to double the LED power installed. Before adding extra light, the plants were very fragile and elongated as shown on the next picture:

image

 

With the extra light the plants on the bottom floor grown stronger and more compact.

 

Also left and right sides got different behaviors due to the reflectivity of the cover material:

image

 

The plants from the left side bended towards light direction positioned at a central position. This will lead to another improvement on our next trial spreading evenly on the growing area or shaping the beam light with secondary optics. The effect can be clearly seen on the next image.

image

 

Due to the shadow of the metal frame structure used to reinforce the structure and some pipes, four plants on the extremity become elongated and fragile as clearly seen on the next image:

image

 

The effect is also visible on the weak radicular system compared to center ones:

image

 

Globally this has been an amazing learning journey. Of course the light is only one of the key factors for healthy growing… but we managed to take some interesting conclusions that will help to recreate a better growing system according to plant needs...

 

Overall we are proud with our first growing trial and for sure we´ll be eating some healthy food on the coming weeks! image

 

As always if you have any questions or comments please feel free to comment this post.

 

Thanks for following and keep connected!

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