15
V
ERTICAL FARMING
•
THECOMMERCIALGREENHOUSEGROWER • JANUARY 2017
plants produce the best
vigour and colour,” says
Robert.
It is not an automatic
system, and following two
weeks on the six-layer
propagation benches (which
are in the same building),
plants aremanually
transferred to themain
gutters, taking roughly
another twoweeks tomature.
Currently, guttersmust be
raisedmanually using a
winch, but the next phase
couldbe to build a fully-
automatic and
electrically-operated system,
possibly for baby leaf. “The
current set-up is to find out
whether the extra production
andqualitywarrants the
larger investment in an
automatic system,” says the
grower, who stresses the
importance of needing good
co-operation.
Early results
impressive
Robert is extremely pleased
with the first fewmonths’
results. “The plants grow at
an amazing speed,” he said,
“and the taste is really
intense.” Over the years, one
important customer group for
the grower has been
restaurants, who are keen to
serve specialties that
consumers cannot find in the
supermarket. “I believewe
are actually developing a new
range of high-quality premium
products for them.”
“We still don’t knowwhat is
possiblewith all herbs, or
evenwhat are the key factors.
It is one giant learning curve
andwe are still discovering
lots of interesting things
about light colour, climate and
irrigation.We are trying to find
out which parts they all play,
but are not yet able to form
any sensible conclusion. Also,
wemay have to do things
differently, so it is going to
take a long time to develop a
blueprint for all crops.”
The grower’smain goal was
to increase production levels
by 20%, andwhile hewas
not able to reveal any
numbers at the time of our
visit, reckons it is easy to do
thiswhen compared to his
existing greenhouse.
Operated from a control
panel, CO2 levels in the pilot
project are continually
monitored andmaintained at
a constant level above
1,000ppm. Developing the
vertical farmproject was one
thing, but heat energy
management had to be
solved, and it was this that
brought Novarbo to the
project with this company’s
climate and heat recovery
technologies.
“LED lighting is very energy
efficient, but produces extra
heat which needs to be
removed from the layers,”
saysNetledmanaging
director NikoKivioja. “We
haveworkedwithNovarbo
before, and knew that they
can offer suitable technology
and solution to this
challenge.”
The result of the two
companies coming together
sees theNetled-developed
coriander andbasil are
possibly the twomost
important.With year-round
production, all his produce is
destined for retailers and
restaurants inSouthern
Finland.
Under themotto there is
always room for
improvement, Robert first
began looking at vertical
farming as away to increase
efficiency around the same
time he added the new
4,000sq.m. greenhouse in
2013.
In the end, he concluded
therewas nothing to beat
Finnish technology. “It is so
intelligent and advanced, that
othermultilayer techniques
I’ve seen are left far behind,”
he says.
One of the reasons he
invested in theNetled-
Novarbo vertical farm
concept, is that it increased
his growing surface area
without anymajor
constructionworks. Robert
did all the planning, and then
designed andbuilt the
framework. Covering a total
floor area of 150sq.m. the
four-layer pilot project
installed earlier last year
provides a total growing area
of 500sq.m.
The grower stresses it is still
early days, but the early signs
are encouraging and the
‘prototype’ system is
successfully producing awide
range of leafy greens and
herbs. The first tests, with
parsley, pea shoots, basil,
coriander and thyme, were
really to find out whether it
was possible to grow
anything at all, and at the time
of our visit the grower had
only just started commercial
production in earnest.
The two herbs that appear to
react best to LEDS are thyme
and lemon balm, two crops
we saw on our visit, but tests
with awide range of other
herbs continues. “We
cooperatewith several seed
breeders to find out which
Robert Jordas is reallypleasedby the results andproduction
levels are easily 20%higher than in themain greenhouse.
Surplus heat from the vertical farmingpilot project is helping
to reduce theheating costs in themain greenhouse.
