Hydroponic configurations and biological nutrient solutions for shipping container plant factories

Plant factories are closed growth environment, insulated, fully automated and artificially illuminated that can increase food security in regions such as Northern Canada. However. the technologies used in large scale plant factories are not suited for smaller scale plant factories, housed in shipping container. La Boîte Maraîchère design growth chambers in shipping container, but want to develop better hydroponic practices to get closer to the yields obtained in large plant factories. Hence, research is needed to increase the knowledge on small scale plant factories hydroponic configurations. This research concerns the comparisons of innovative multistage hydroponic configurations based on nutrient film technique, floating beds and aeroponics. The main innovation is to include the aspect of crop movement in these hydroponic system, to potentially automate the crop production.

Faculty Supervisor:

Mark Lefsrud

Student:

David Leroux

Partner:

Discipline:

Engineering - other

Sector:

Forestry

University:

Program:

Accelerate