Outdoor vertical farming on textile substrates

Abstract

Vertical farming may solve the problem that in many regions of the world, more area would be necessary to produce food, than it is available. Especially in large cities and other densely crowded areas, vertical farming can provide an efficient and eco-friendly way to feed people. While indoor vertical farming plants are usually highly automatized, outdoor approaches are usually less professionally setup and thus often prone to drying-out, in this way disturbing of even destroying the plants grown in such setups. Here we report on semi-automated irrigation systems, combined with different textile substrates to reduce the risk of fully dried substrates, in order to make inexpensive, successful vertical farming systems available for everybody.