State-of-The-Art Factory-Style Plant Production Systems

Factory-style plant production systems of various kinds are the final goal of greenhouse production systems. These systems facilitate planning for constant productivity per unit area and labor under various outside weather conditions, although energy consumption is intensive. Physical environmental control in combination with biological control can replace the use of agricultural chemicals such as insecticides, herbicides and hormones to regulate plants. In this way, closed systems which do not use such agricultural chemicals are ideal for environmental conservation for the future. Nutrient components in plants can be regulafied by physical environmental control including nutrient solution control in hydroponics. Therefore, specific contents of nutrients for particular plants can be listed on the container and be used as the basis of customer choice in the future. Plant production systems can be classified into three types based on the type of lighting: natural lighting, supplemental lighting and completely artificial lighting (Plant Factory). The amount of energy consumption increases in this order, although the degree of weather effects is in the reverse order. In the addition to lighting, factory-style plant production systems consist of mechanized and automated systems for transplanting, environmental control, hydroponics, transporting within the facility, and harvesting. Space farming and development of pharmaceutical in bio-reactors are other applications of these types of plant production systems. Various kinds of state-of-art factory-style plant production systems are discussed in the present paper. These systems are, in general, rather sophisticated and mechaized, and energy consumption is intensive. Factory-style plant production is the final goal of greenhouse production systems and the possibilities for the future are infinte but not clear.