Analysis of the Potato Vegetation Stages Based on the Dynamics of Water Consumption in the Closed Urban Vertical Farm with Automated Microclimate Control

Abstract

One of the promising trends in modern agronomy is the development of automated closed urban vertical farms with controlled environmental conditions, which can improve dynamics of the crop vegetation process. In the frame of this work, the analysis of the vegetative stages of potato seed material (minitubers and microplants) grown in the conditions of the automated vertical farm was conducted. The study was performed at the vertical farm of the Federal Research Center “Fundamentals of Biotechnology” of the Russian Academy of Sciences by the analysis of water consumption dynamics. It was established that the 20-day reduction in the vegetative period of the vertical-farm-grown potatoes in comparison with the field-grown ones occurred due to the reduction in the final stage of vegetation (mass gain of newly formed tubers) under the minitubers planting. The same reduction occurred due to both final and initial vegetative stage (absence of tubers germination) under the planting of microplants. The obtained result shed new light on the vegetation dynamics of potato grown under controlled conditions of the urban vertical farms and demonstrated a possibility to perform the study of plant development process using automated diagnostics systems of vertical farms.