Plant Factory – Theory and Practice

Wei FANG¹, Wen Ju Yang²

¹Dept. of Biomechatronics Engineering

²Dept. of Horticulture

The Master Program in Global Agriculture Technology and Genomic Science (Global ATGS)

National Taiwan University

Plant factories (PF) have been expected to contribute to solving global issues related to population, resource and environment by achieving the highest possible yields and quality with the minimum consumption of resources and minimum emission of environmental pollutants in limited land areas with non-fertile soil by fully exploiting the latest advances in science, engineering and technology. This course covers all basic and application aspects of the PF, including design and components of the PF, factors affecting plant growth, physiology of leafy and fruit vegetables, crop cultural practices, engineering economic, literature reviews of light quality and value-added crops related papers, business models and quantitative evaluation of total performance of PF.

Course Outline

Contents		Supplement
1	Background and introduction of plant factory (PF) focusing on PFAL (Plant Factory with Artificial Lighting) Vertical farms search for video through Google or MicroSoft Bing	Urban Ag.News, UAN-WebSite Global challenge indoorCropProduction
2	System design & Engineering Economic Analysis of the PFAL System design of plumbing concepts	Overview Plenty Aerofarm1, 2 Spread Skygreen Skygreen Hub AutoCrop
3	Properties of the moist air Software1 LetsGrow VPD	PsyEqs (Ch.2), Intro.LetsGrow
4	Environmental factors affecting plant growth I: Air temperature, humidity and air velocity	Effects of RH&Rt Temp on Ca
5	Environmental factors affecting plant growth II: Light & CO2 Light intensity, quality and duration and CO2	Effect of photoperiod and CO2 Light recipes, UV and FR Phytochrome PhotoEquilibrium B&R_light,2ndary metab Oedema, FR_disease_resistant
6	Environmental factors affecting plant growth III: Water & Nutrients Hydroponics: Growers’ guide and recipes What is Hydroponics How it works symptoms of nutrient deficiencies in hydroponics lettuce	Floating hydroponics Aeroponic Automatic Growing System from hydroponics to bioponics
7	Automation in GH and in PFAL (old and new: SananBio, Autocrop)	Bowery Cubic Farm Convey
8	Hands on: preparation and sowing (Assembly/growing process)	NTU-PF
9	Plant physiology: fundamentals (by Prof. Yang)
10	Plant physiology: leafy vegetables (by Prof. Yang)
11	Plant physiology: fruit vegetables (by Prof. Yang)
12	Hands on: spacing, transplanting, harvesting, Cleaning	NTU-PF
13	Business models of PFAL
14	PFAL simulator	xlsx for PFAL simulator xlsx for Pn simualtor
15	Total Performance Evaluation (TPE) of PFAL (ppt1, ppt2)	xlsx for TPE of PFAL
16	Final report by students

Reference

Books

1. Fang, W. 2016. Chapter 3. PFAL business and R&D in the world: current status and perspectives. Chapter 3 of Plant factory-An Indoor Vertical Farming System for Efficient Quality Food Production. Elsvier Inc. ISBN: 978-0-12-801775-3.

2. Fang, W. 2016. Chapter 21. Business models for PFAL in Taiwan. Chapter 21 of LED lighting for Urban Agriculture. Springer. ISBN 978-981-10-18466.

3. Kozai Toyoki, Kazuhiro Fujiwara, Eric S. Runkle 2016. LED lighting for Urban Agriculture. Springer. ISBN 978-981-10-18466.

4. Kozai Toyoki, Genhua Niu, Michiko Takagaki 2016. Plant factory-An Indoor Vertical Farming System for Efficient Quality Food Production. Elsvier Inc. ISBN: 978-0-12-801775-3.

5. Kozai Toyoki 2018. Smart Plant Factory-The Next Generation Indoor Vertical Farms. Springer. ISBN 978-981-13-1064-5.

Published papers

1. Chung H.Y., M. Y. Chang, C. C. Wu, and W. Fang. 2018. Quantitative evaluation of electric light recipes for red leaf lettuce cultivation in Plant Factories. HortTechnology 28(6):755-763.

2. Kong, S. W., H. Y. Chung, M. Y. Chang and W. Fang. 2015. The contribution of different spectral sections to increase fresh mass of Boston lettuce. HortScience 50(7) 1006-1010.

3. Hui-lian Xu, Qicong Xu, Fenglan Li, Yanzhong Feng, Feifei Qin, Wei Fang. 2012. Applications of xerophytophysiology in plant production—LED blue light as a stimulus improved the tomato crop. Scientia Horticulturae 148 。2012 190–196.

4. Chang, M.Y., W. Fang, P.H. Wu, C.C. Chen. 2011. Effect of artificial light supplement in transcontinental sea cargo on the flowering of young spiking Phalaenopsis. Acta Horticulturae 907:277-282.

5. Fang, W., C.C. Chen, Y.Y. Lee, M.Y. Chang. 2011. Development of LED lids for tissue culture lighting. Acta Horticulturae 907:397-402.

6. Wu, C.C., S.T. Hsu, M.Y. Chang, W. Fang. 2011. Effect of light environment on runner plant propagation of strawberry. Acta Horticulturae 907: 297-302.

7. Lee, Y.Y. and W. Fang. 2011. Effect of 6 different LED light qualities on the seedling growth of Paphiopedilum orchid in vitro. Acta Horticulturae 907:389-392.

8. Lee, Y.Y. and W. Fang. 2011. Histological observation on the growth of potato plantlet in vitro under 6 different light qualities. Acta Horticulturae 907: 393-402.