The University of Arizona’s Controlled Environment Agriculture Center (UA-CEAC) and technology/industry collaborators have come together to launch a new multi-tier vertical farm (VF) based research, education, and outreach facility (UAgFarm) at the UA-CEAC. The UAgFarm facility was developed for engineering and science based research to address challenges and help advancing technology and crop production applications with indoor growing under artificial lighting, to provide experiential educational opportunities for students, and to educate and inform growers and public on indoor growing systems.
University of Arizona UAg VF facility located at Controlled Environment Agriculture Center has 770 square feet of floor space, with two independently climate controlled room, each room with 2 racks consisting of 3 deep-flow hydroponics beds (each 4 ft wide x 8 ft length) with adjustable height between growing bed and lighting. Sole source lighting in UAg Farm utilizes LED modules (with blue and red channels) with remotely and independently controlled light intensity at each growing shelve. A custom designed and built data acquisition and graphical user interface system enables real-time monitoring of air temperature, relative humidity, CO2, light intensity from aerial environment and pH, electrical conductivity, dissolved oxygen from nutrient solution as well as monitoring of resource use (i.e. energy, water, CO2), while controlling CO2 injections.
Project Objectives
- To conduct engineering and science based research to address challenges and help advancing technology and crop production applications with indoor growing under artificial lighting,
- To provide experiential educational opportunities for students,
- To educate and inform growers and public on indoor growing systems.