How Vertical Farming Increases Crop Yields

It seems modern farmers have a lot of factors working against them. Soil erosion and degradation, volatile weather conditions and climate chaos, the need for safe pest management and fertilization, and so many more details must be carefully considered. Fail to optimize your farming operation in any aspect, and you could see an entire season’s work lost. Even if you manage everything perfectly, you may lose out to floods, fires, drought, or storms. What’s a farmer to do?

Increasingly, farmers are turning to new growing methods and technologies to boost crop yields and protect themselves from losses. Vertical farming is a sure-fire way to increase production and protect against adversity. It offers many benefits that all farmers should explore thoroughly. 

Traditional farming methods can produce about 40 lbs of lettuce per 100 square feet of planting space, based on standard row plantings. By contrast, vertical farming can produce roughly three-quarters of a ton of leafy greens in the same amount of space. 

Plants per Acre

The most apparent way vertical farms produce increased crop yields is by maximizing the production of each acre. Traditional field farms plant their crops in long, low horizontal rows, requiring a lot of space to grow crops. In a vertical farm, plants are stacked high in trays or towers, allowing a farm to produce a greater amount of food in a much smaller footprint.

By stacking plants vertically, a farmer can raize dozens of plants in the space they would otherwise only grow one. By maximizing space in this way, higher yields can be assured.

More Harvests per Year

On traditional farms, it’s common to have one or two harvests per year. Since crop growth is tied to the seasons, breaking out of this constraint is nearly impossible. But since vertical farms are generally grown indoors, seasonal change is irrelevant. 

Eden Green Technology’s vertical greenhouses use a patented micro-climate technology. This tech allows our plants to receive the optimal heat, light, humidity, and other conditions to match each crop’s needs. When farmers can control the climate of each crop, they can grow their plants to maturity far faster and can plant new ones as often as the cycle will allow. Since our average harvest cycle is just 28 days, farmers can grow 11-13 harvests per year. This is a significant boost to crop yields.

Greatly Reduced Crop Loss

One of the most difficult challenges of farming is avoiding crop loss. Traditional farming methods make it difficult to guard against extreme weather, swarms of pests, pollution and contamination, and soil degradation concerns. So many conditions work against farmers, and most are beyond their control when growing plants in an open-air environment. 

Vertical farming offers answers to these problems as well. Within the controlled environment of a hydroponic greenhouse, climate concerns are nearly nonexistent. That means that crop loss due to flood or drought is not a concern. In fact, vertical farms can do well in regions of the globe where adverse weather conditions are the norm. Even in the driest deserts, the coldest tundras, and the most storm-prone areas, these greenhouses continue to produce. 

Within the protection of the greenhouse system, plants are also far less susceptible to pest problems. While these can’t be entirely eliminated, they are far easier to control without the dangers of toxic chemicals. 

Vertical farms often can avoid soil-related concerns as well with farming techniques that remove soil from the equation entirely. Hydroponic farms are an excellent example, where plants grow in water instead of dirt. This means erosion and soil degradation play no role, while plants can receive a perfect balance of nutrients directly to their roots for maximum benefit.

With all of these crop-killing problems removed entirely or significantly mitigated, farmers can be assured that their plants will all reach maturity, be harvested, and make it to market. Compare that to traditional farming methods, where 20-40% of crops are lost to diseases, animal pests, and weeds each year, and even more are lost to climate and weather crises.

Get Started with Vertical Farming

If you’re looking for a way to boost your farm yields and protect crops against pests, weather, and other problems, vertical farming is an excellent option. To learn more, RSVP for a virtual tour of one of our greenhouses. Or contact us to learn about our turnkey vertical farming solutions and how they can benefit your operations.