What kind of plant production environment can be called a plant factory? Since the establishment of Biosphere 2 in the United States in 1987, although this experiment ended in failure, humans have been in the process of continuous exploration. With the continuous development of greenhouse planting, soilless cultivation, artificial lighting, etc. With rapid development, the concept of plant factory has gone through a process from clear to fuzzy, and then from fuzzy to clear.
The clarity at the beginning is the ideal state of Biosphere 2, which is simply a mini-Earth; the reason for the blur is because Biosphere 2 failed; now it is becoming clearer because of the rapid development of various aspects of technology, making people realize The ideal state of Biosphere 2 is still feasible in many places, but it is not too harsh.
How to define the term plant factory? According to the current development trend of plant factories in various countries around the world, to be called a plant factory, at least the following conditions must be met:
(1) It can realize the continuous production and operation of crops in an infinite period;
(2) Almost fully automatic control of the internal environment of the factory, including light, carbon dioxide concentration, temperature, humidity, nutrient solution, etc.;
(3) Not affected by natural conditions, almost completely out of natural conditions;
(4) Automatic control of the production line, from pre-production, mid-production to post-production, etc., all-round automation;
(5) While the production efficiency is significantly higher than that of traditional planting, it must be ensured that after the plant factory is mature, the cost is lower than that of traditional planting, the quality of crops is better than traditional planting, energy consumption is lower than that of traditional planting, and environmental pollution is lower than that of traditional planting.
In the final analysis: a plant factory is a plant planting system that can realize the unlimited cycle of continuous production and operation of crops, free from the influence of natural conditions, fully realize automatic control, and is beneficial to humans and the earth.
To be precise, the current plant factory cannot be called a plant factory in the true sense. It is just a transitional period for the plant factory. Although the emergence of LED plant lights has dispelled many concerns when using traditional plant lights, it also has a real meaning. Admiral’s concept of “everything grows by the sun” has been completely overturned. Indeed, it can be said that the emergence of LED plant lights has promoted a big step in the development of plant factories.
However, a plant planting revolution that takes decades or even hundreds of years to complete can be controlled by a small LED plant light.
In 2013, my country’s “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” 863 project “Research on Intelligent Plant Factory Production Technology” was initiated. The project set up 7 topics: LED energy-saving light source for plant factories, three-dimensional soilless cultivation, light-temperature coupling and energy-saving environmental control, nutrition Liquid regulation, network-based intelligent management, and integrated demonstration of artificial light plant factories and natural light plant factories.
As far as the current state of the plant factory is concerned, the production cost is extremely high. The statistics of the growth conditions of various plants in different growth periods are not complete. The crops with statistical data are not completely stable in output, and the semi-automatic control method of the plant factory is not fully mature. .
And the most important point is that the current energy consumption and pollution of plant factories are much higher than that of traditional farming methods. According to statistics from American scientists, if plant factories are currently used to grow rice, it is required to meet the requirements of all the population in California for a year’s consumption. It is twice the total annual electricity consumption of the entire United States; waste gas pollution is far greater than the traditional farming mode.
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