INSPIRATION
Fluctuating and extreme weather events constantly hamper conventional farming methods. Further, growing crops in populated cities, deserts, or other unfavorable conditions pose significant challenges. This is overcome by controlled environment agriculture (CEA). In CEA, plants are subjected to
a controlled proportion of light, temperature, humidity, and nutrients. There are different growing environments, namely,indoor farming, vertical farming, greenhouses, among others.
There is an increased deployment of techniques like hydroponics and aeroponics which involve growing soilless plants in a liquid nutrient medium or steam. Another such technique is aquaponics, where plants and fish are cultivated simultaneously. Fish provides nutrients to plants, while plants purify the water for the fish. CEA methods reduce pests and diseases, increase yield, and establish sustainable farming practices.
US-based startup OnePointOne builds a vertical plane aeroponics farming space. They deploy vertical farming techniques to come up with space-saving, water-saving, and labor-saving solutions. Further, they deploy hyperspectral high-resolution imagery to analyze plants on the farm. The startup also provides personalized farming and nutrition services to farmers.
Lithuanian startup Baltic Freya identifies existing problems in the field of hydroponics and aeroponics to give rise to a new and improved fogponics technique. Plants grown through hydroponics are likely to acquire root diseases, while aeroponics often deploys several nozzles. Existing fogponics techniques may overheat the nutrient solution or crack the piezoceramics discs. So, the startup has come up with Fogponics 2.0, where they ensure optimum fog generation so as to not overheat the solution or crack the discs. This sustains and improves the maintenance and operability of the environment where plants grow.
