Evaluation of Fertilizer Electrical Conductivity (EC) and Temperature Distribution via Vertical Farming System under Plant Factory

Abstract

A plant factory has been developed at Horticultural Research Centre, MARDI Serdang. The cultivation approach under the plant factory consists of nine units planting racks with each rack having seven tiers or levels that can cultivate up to 900 crops per rack. Each unit of planting racks has been installed with electrical conductivity (EC) and pH monitoring system. EC is a meaningful indicator of water quality, soil salinity and fertilizer concentration. In this study, the data for EC and temperature were taken for each level different locations (three points along the rack) to evaluate the fertilizer quality distribution. The objective of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of EC and temperature distribution on the planting rack of vertical farming system under the plant factory. From the study, it was found that EC and temperature parameters were not significantly different at each level and the point location of the vertical farming system. EC and temperature parameters were significantly different with the time (week) and point location from week to week. The effect of the interaction between time (week) and level on EC and temperature parameters were not statistically different. Therefore, it can be concluded that the effect of EC and temperature distribution at different levels of the vertical farming system did not depend on the time.

Keywords

• Plant factory
• vertical farming system
• fertilizer concentration distribution
• Electrical Conductivity and temperature monitoring