The Institute of Plant Production at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa, Italy) has just inaugurated a new technology container that will encourage research and development within the fields of indoor and vertical cultivation with the goal of analyzing the responses of the horticultural crop to changing environmental and the conditions under which they grow.
The container used for cultivating indoor of the plants
It was possible due to collaboration with C-Led and Greatit which provided the advanced equipment for the Agritech project. The facility is state of the art designed to allow researchers to conduct studies on the growth of plants within a controlled atmosphere.
Raffaello Montanari, of C-Led
“In reality, because of an all-encompassing control system, it’s feasible to control and manage every aspect of the environment within Demetra container. Demetra container” Explain Raffaello Montanari of C-Led as well as Daniele Bertocchi of Greatit. “From the introduction of high-quality LED lighting, in which both the light spectrum and its intensity are adjustable according to the weather, in which the temperature is adjustable from +5degC to +45degC. humidity control that ranges from 60-90 percent, to the fertigation process, that allows for the dispersal of fertilizer with irrigation water, and also the use of various methods at the same time.”
Daniele Bertocchi Greatit
The C-LED lights that come in this container can provide maximal flexibility when it comes to controlling the illumination that plants receive by means of the control and management of each channel (red 666 num, blue 450 nanometers white 4000K, and seventy-nine nm red) It is possible to alter what light is that is available to plants at any moment or even create and test every possible shade, by altering the percentage of electromagnetic wavelengths spectrum.
Additionally, after the right spectrum is determined for the plant species to grow, it’s possible to alter the amount of light intensity that is expressed as the PPFD (photosynthetic intensity of photons, expressed in the mmol/m2 s-1) as well as the time of day, i.e. the hours of daylight per day, which is a crucial aspect of the physiology of plants.
An incident in the ceremony to inaugurate the container for vertical farming
This Demetra 2 isothermal containers is an old, refurbished vessel that is used as an vertical farm. It was completely customized by Greatit srl., an Italian business that works in the fields of sustainable agriculture and zero-km0 farming. The design comprises the chamber to experiment with diverse types of plants having an interior volume of 25.13 cubic meters, and comes with all the tools needed to cultivate plants under a controlled atmosphere. The control of the cell allows to alter the temperature, control of humidity, and activation of the anti-stratification system that suckers the air from the upper zone, and diffusing the air into the lower zone to create a consistent temperature and humidity throughout the entire cell, with no air moving in directly contact with the item being treated. The fertigation device can be utilized to spread fertilizers through the irrigation water, and to use different treatment methods simultaneously.
The features listed above provide the chamber with a climate that is appropriate for conducting scientific research. It is fitted with racks with different sizes than those typically used in trades for vegetable products including microgreens and baby leaves (young plants and leaves from green vegetables) which are ideal for cultivating diverse species of medium size, and sensors that evaluate the quality of the illumination, an internal camera, and a software that can manage the setting remotely using a the tablet and smartphone.
More information is available here: 
C-LED
Via Gambellara, 34
40026 – Imola (BO) – Italy
Tel. : +39 0542 654980
[email protected]
www.c-led.it
Greatit
Daniele Bertocchi
Tel. : +39 3249034218
[email protected]
www.greatit.it