The world's largest "indoor farm" produces 10,000 heads of lettuce per day Bashny.Net

A former Sony Corporation semiconductor factory in Japan, which was badly damaged by the earthquake and tsunami in 2011, was transformed into the world's largest indoor farm. Japanese plant physiologist to Shigeharu, Shimamura (Shigeharu Shimamura), now CEO of Mirai Co., in partnership with GE Japan (General Electric Japan) made his dream a reality. The concept was developed in 2011, when GE invited Shigeharu the idea of using advanced led lights to illuminate the farm. The company began testing the technology in March 2012 and finally launched the project in 2013.





The farm has an area the size of half a football field — about 7.5 thousand square meters. Today, a year after launch, it is producing 10,000 heads of lettuce per day.

Agriculture uses more than 17 thousand LED LEDs located on more than 18 racks with a height up to 15 levels. The LEDs developed by engineers at GE's thin enough to fit in racks that provide uniform light distribution and bring a high level of humidity.

LEDs emit light waves with a length optimal for the growth of this type of plant. They allow Shigeharu to control the cycle of day and night, and to achieve an optimal balance for bistro plant growth. As he says, Shimamura, "we must not only create a greater number of days and nights, but also to achieve the best combination of photosynthesis during the day and breathing at night by controlling the lighting and the environment."





The developed method allows the farm to grow lettuce full of vitamins and minerals in two and a half times faster than outdoors. He has also reduced waste harvest from 50 percent to only 10 percent compared to a conventional farm. By controlling the temperature, humidity and the quantity of water by plants, the farm was able to reduce water usage to just 1 percent of the amount required in the open air fields. As a result, the performance of the farm per square meter up to 100 times more.





The idea of farm in pomeshivanii was born in Shimamura even when as a teenager he visited a "vegetable factory" at Expo '85 in science from Tsukuba, Japan. He studied plant physiology at the Agricultural University of Tokyo, and in 2004 started a company with the aim to grow vegetables indoors. Company name Mirai in Japanese means "future".

The GE Japan team believes that indoor farms such can be the key to solving food shortages in the world. Mirai and GE are already working on similar farms in Hong Kong and the far East in Russia.



Shigeharu, Shimamura, the founder of Mirai Co.

Source: thinkgreen.ru