New developments in vertical and indoor farming allow of plants and crops to be produced at very high densities in totally controlled environments. This allows year-round production of identical plant material of a consistent and high quality from batch to batch.
These towers are also an important research tool as their consistent output year-round accelerates gene discovery and crop breeding. Being able to grow plants continuously under optimised conditions allows multiple generations to be created in a single year, increasing the rate at which new varieties can be produced. Combining vertical growth towers with high-throughput (functional) phenotyping also allows rapid screening of breeding and mutant plant populations.
Research Applications of vertical growing towers include:
- Plant population screening
- High throughput production of consistent experimental plant material
- Speed breeding