Performance evaluation of vertical farming structures

Abstract

The study entitle “Performance evaluation of vertical farming structures” was taken up to compare the growth of amaranthus under different treatments on different vertical farming structures. The orientation of the both the structure was in north-south direction. For comparing the performance of plants under VFS1 and VFS2, climatic parameters as well as biometric observations were made. The analysis of climatic parameters suggested that adoption of VFS can modify the climatic parameters (temperature, humidity etc) considerably to provide a favorable climatic condition. The number of leaves, stem girth, plant height and yield varied between the treatments. T4 had the best performance in both VFS compared to T1,T2 and T3. The analysis of yield data showed that the highest yield was obtained for the treatment T4 of VFS1and VFS2. The study revealed that T4 (soil media) is the best rooting media with 70% of level of irrigation for growing crops in VFS2 compared to T1 (100% level of irrigation with soilless), T2 (70% level of irrigation with soilless media) and T3 (100% level of irrigation with soil media). The study suggested that VFS2 orienting in North-South direction, can be recommended more precisely for the conventional farming practice on limited land area compared to VFS1 due to the lack of proper drainage.