Posted on 08/12/2016 3:05:59 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Two guys from Canada have come up with a new way for everyone from small indoor growers to large-scale vertical farmers to easily automate their operations. Their system's called Motorleaf and it collects data about your plants and then instructs your existing grow equipment to adjust to the crop’s needs. Think of it as the Nest for your indoor farm.
In the summer of 2015, Ramen Dutta began tinkering around with a way to more easily care for his small indoor hobby farm. Although he had a degree in agricultural engineering, he had been working in IT and created an early version of the Motorleaf system on his own. When he met Alistair Monk, who also has a background in the technology sector, at a co-working space in Sutton, a town in Quebec, Canada, things clicked and they officially founded their company.
The center of the Motorleaf system is appropriately called the Heart. It’s a computer device that collects data on the air temperature, humidity, and the light levels of your growing space. When you connect the Heart to your lighting system and feeder pumps, it’ll automate them, and using your smartphone, tablet, or laptop, you can set up custom alerts about changing conditions and watch your farm in real time. “We’re the ‘plant whisperer’ since we listen to plants via their data, crunch their data, and whisper back instructions,” says Monk in an email.
From there, you can build up with three other pieces of hardware—the Droplet, the Driplet, and the PowerLeaf—to fully automate your indoor farm. The Droplet monitors your water source, including pH and nutrient levels, then sends this information to the Heart, which adjusts the water level and temperature in your reservoir. The Driplet automates the delivery of the pH and plant nutrients based on live grow conditions or via conditions you manually set. The PowerLeaf automates two other existing pieces of equipment, like your humidifier or heater—in fact, multiple PowerLeafs can control up to 200 pieces; any existing indoor grow equipment will adapt. You can use all four units of the system, or as many or as few as you like.
The company is currently only working with indoor growers they’ve invited, including traditional hydroponic farmers, vertical farmers, tower gardeners, freight farmers, and operations using grow tents and grow closets. Before the Motorleaf system will be available to the public toward the end of the year, they want to gather feedback and make sure “we live up to our claim to work with all types of indoor growers,” Monk says.
The whole system will cost around $1,500, a good price when compared to other automation systems equivalent to just the Driplet, which can run around $2,000. Motorleaf keeps their costs down by working directly with customers, limiting advertising, and employing a small team. They are only interested, they say, in making a decent living while helping folks grow more local vegetables.
It's indoors. Save yourself $1500 by looking across the room at it in real time. If the leaves are drooping, water it.
I think the motion detector and surveillance set-up is so you can get out of dodge when the cops raid your grow.
Seriously though, agricultural technology is rapidly changing in ways that will make growing crops much easier in the future. This is why I laugh at those who say we are at peak food and the world cannot support more population. With cheap energy our food supply is endless.
Wow, those are healthy plants!
Vertical farming is something I’ve been interested in. Fresh produce and meat can be grown in skyscraper-like farms - all organically or hydroponically year-round. No worries about the weather. This would work wonders in urban areas, and would resolve the whining from Moochelle about “food deserts.”
That was my first thought when I saw the phrase “Indoor Farming”. With many, it’s become a polite euphemism for pot growing.
Yep - food will be more plentiful in the future and the costs of these systems is dropping drastically. You can grow an amazing amount of food in a small space and it is not subject to the whims of nature, disease, or pests. Just cheap electricity and some of the systems recycle much of the water.
Hey welcome back.
:D
“Helping folks grow more local vegetables”
They must be smoking radishes up in Canada.
If I was a young fella that is the business I would get into, find some old warehouse an hour or two outside of New York and start growing tomatoes and lettuce, you could clean up with fresh produce in the winter, few employees lots of robotics and watering and lights but not too many people
The key to profit margin in that business would be cheap electricity and water with low property costs and taxes. Would be far more profitable growing it in rural county near the city and trucking it in. Call yourself organic and locally grown and reap profits!
“Indoor Farming” has been euphemism for pot growing, but lessons learned by pot growers is combining with new technologies (LEDs and robotics) to offer new options for agriculture.
Underground, Undersea or in Outer Space; people will be able to grow food with little to no labor. Suburbanites could produce most of their food needs.
There are already niches where it makes money. Folks are already doing some of this for some specialty crops, like herbs and salad greens for city restaurants being raised in in racks, inside old factories downtown. It can provide a significant improvement in quality and safety.
And as marijuana legalization widens, more individuals will want turnkey approaches to growing high quality, and commercial growers will be interested in the protection from theft that growing indoors offers.
Over the course of the next generation, agriculture will be largely automated/roboticized.
How about automated greenhouse options, as roofs for new buildings?
I would like to grow my own tobacco. No more government taxes and no Dr. Jekyll chemical additives.
This is where you want to use solar and wind power for the electric as the power company notice a place using gigawatts of more power then their neighbors.
I have constructed three lettuce towers that I have outside right now. the design will work indoors. It is working great even with this heat wave of 95+ this week
You’ll need Huey,d ewey, and Louie from Silent running
What is your method?
Tell us more. I had towers for my squash but they died in the heat. I think elevating the vines off the ground exposed them to too much dry air and relentless sun.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.