“Pulsed lighting could potentially reduce costs by 30% with no impact on growth”

“Electricity is one of the biggest costs for indoor farming because we can’t take advantage of sunlight. Although LED lights are already cost saving, I wanted to know if pulsing instead of continuous light would have any effect on the plant,” says Jacinta. Penn from the New Zealand company Verb Farm.

Jacinta came into contact with vertical farming while graduating. She spent six months researching the challenges of long-distance transportation, the development of agricultural facilities, and labor shortages leading to closures and waste. From there, she decided to study the viability of vertical farming and the influence of technology on it.

Hyacinth Penn

Jacinta spent much of her childhood on an organic farm, but hydroponics is new to her. She says she made many rookie mistakes because there is little reliable information available. Although hydroponics offers a new playground, her background in technology means she has a set of tools to improve the efficiency of vertical farming.

For example, Jacinta is studying the possibilities of pulsed lighting to reduce electricity costs by 30% without affecting the crop. She also studies the role of robots and software options for simple crop management, sales tracking and other activities. All of this combined ensures that Jacinta can develop a small-scale vertical farm and offer educational materials about it to the community.

“I am also studying how the farm can be used to stimulate school-age children to think about a career in horticulture, especially in agtech. I would like to build a micro-farm for less than 31,600 euros and work with an affordable partner to package the products so that I can become a local supplier,” says Jacinta.

Housing construction reduces horticultural acreage in New Zealand
One of the reasons Jacinta started to dive into vertical farming was because more and more horticultural acreage is being lost to construction projects. This reduces the production capacity of local products. In combination with the expected increase in world population and climate change, food production in New Zealand is under pressure. Labor shortages are also a major challenge, especially now that the number of migrants has been drastically reduced by the pandemic.

“In early studies, growers reported that weather conditions and a shortage of skilled workers were the biggest challenges. Entire fields could not be plowed because migrants were unable to enter the country” , explains Jacinta. “Local workers didn’t want to work outside in the wind, rain and hot sun, if they had a more comfortable job for the same pay.”

And that, according to Jacintha, is where robots can make a difference. They continue to work in extreme weather conditions and perform monotonous tasks without any problems.

Result of the research
Overall, Jacinta’s research yielded a wide range of results. She discovered, for example, that pulsed lighting has a significant positive effect on plant growth. Further research into labor shortages revealed that the root cause was farm design and a lack of knowledge about the crops being grown. The most repetitive tasks were sowing and transplanting, while most of the time was spent harvesting, packing, cleaning and troubleshooting.

“If more information is available about the culture, we can save hours. Harvesting equipment instead of scissors can also help. The study revealed that an easy-to-use farm design and a lot of knowledge are very important for beginners,” says Jacinta.

She recommends beginners seek out online or on-site training to learn the practicalities of vertical farming. She also recommends using technology to help employees with how-to videos for daily tasks, troubleshooting, and more.

For more information:
Jacinta Penn, Real Estate Developer
Verb farms
[email protected]
www.verbfarms.co.nz