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Click & Grow 25 Is An Efficient, Self-Monitoring Indoor Garden
“I started the company with a dream to make fresh food available and accessible for everyone and with the Click & Grow 25, we finally made it happen in a sustainable way,” said Mattias Lepp, founder, and CEO of Click & Grow
Written by Dawn Hammon
June 9, 2021
In a world struggling to find balance between busy lifestyles and healthy living, Click and Grow 25 aims to offer an easy-to-use way to grow organic food inside your home.
The smart indoor garden only takes up as much space as a microwave, yet with stacking trays, you can grow fresh produce for one person, two people or an entire family. With such a compact design, anyone can incorporate the Click & Grow 25 into their apartment, home or office.
The system is intuitive and does most of the work for you. Simply select your proprietary biodegradable Smart Soil plant pods, which are similar to the design used in single-serve coffee machines. Each pod is pre-loaded with seeds and soil. Once planted, the built-in technology takes over, monitoring the growth of leafy greens, fruits, and herbs.
This self-growing garden takes care of plants automatically by maintaining optimal levels of moisture, nutrients, root oxygen and pH. The device ensures perfect conditions needed to grow lush produce at a faster rate than you will find in an outdoor garden. Plus, the direct garden-to-table aspect offers a higher nutrient content than store-bought food, often pulled from the field weeks before. All plants are organic without the need for fertilizers and pesticides.
Click & Grow 25 not only provides convenience, but its energy-efficient design consumes just 200 kWh of electricity per year, which equates to about $40 in large urban areas. An associated app lets users know when it is time to add more water and offers harvesting tips as well as recipes.
“I started the company with a dream to make fresh food available and accessible for everyone and with the Click & Grow 25, we finally made it happen in a sustainable way,” said Mattias Lepp, founder and CEO of Click & Grow. “With the impact of population growth and the demand on our natural resources, it is inevitable for us to become more self-sufficient. I believe we are all going to be growing some of our food at home soon and I’m certain we’ve developed the best solution to do just that.”
Click & Grow 25 recently launched via Kickstarter, where it was fully funded in the first 20 minutes. At the time of writing, it had raised over $500,000 of the $35,000 goal.
Images via Click & Grow
SCOTLAND: Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) Vertical Farming Solutions
With vertical farming now starting to take off around the world, one Scottish company is rapidly becoming recognized as a world leader in providing the technology required to make vertical farms flourish
CLIMATE FOR CHANGE
IGS -produce grown in trays
With vertical farming now starting to take off around the world, one Scottish company is rapidly becoming recognized as a world leader in providing the technology required to make vertical farms flourish.
As David Farquhar, CEO at Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS), explains, his company has patented several technologies that give IGS’s automated, human-free, vertical tower ‘farms’ a huge edge over the competition. There are at least three major challenges facing any company wanting to design ‘box’ systems for vertically farming plants, Farquhar explains.
“If you put plants into a sealed metal box you are putting a natural process into an unnatural housing, so you have to create the perfect weather and climate for them. This means solving three big problems,” he says.
David Farquhar, CEO at Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS)
Most plants will tolerate 18 hours or so of sunlight a day, but as living, breathing organisms, they need a period of rest every 24 hours. Plus LED lighting, which replaces sunlight in these sealed structures, is very energy hungry. So the first challenge is how to devise and control the perfect lighting environment.
IGS solved this with several patented processes. “All the LED lights that you see around you have an inherent flicker,” Farquhar explains. This is because they use single-phase electricity. This is basically a sine wave and in the middle of each wave the current is off, so LEDs flicker 50 times a second,” he explains.
IGS’s process uses three-phase electricity and also clusters the LEDs into colours and wavelengths so that it can tune the lights to give the plants exactly, but only, what they need to optimise growth and minimise cost. “We have a worldwide patent on using all three phases of mains electricity at low voltage to power LEDs. This is a unique invention and gives us a huge advantage,” he comments.
Green light stresses plants, so the idea is not to simply deliver the equivalent of blanket sunlight throughout the growing life of the plant. By tuning the LEDs so the plants only get the wavelengths that really benefit them IGS maximises the growth potential and minimises climate impact.
“By being extremely precise and giving the plants only the parts of the spectrum they need, we can reduce the amount of power we need. So we only need 50 percent of the amount of energy that vertical farms generally require,” Farquhar says. That adds up to a very significant energy saving for the farmers.
The second big challenge comes from the fact that plants take in water, carbon and nutrients and as part of the transpiration process they ‘exhale’ warm, humid oxygen. That mix is deadly to other plants around them so the trick is to deliver the right amount of air at the right temperature and speed, while extracting the hot, humid oxygen, and then rebalancing everything in an environmentally efficient fashion.
IGS cools the oxygen and captures the condensed water vapour. Mixed with CO2 this cool air is then blown back into the tower at a temperature that offsets the unwanted heat generated by the LED lights. Because LEDs are not 100 percent efficient, only two-thirds of the energy they consume is released as light, the other third is released as heat. The sealed tower farms need to support multiple, precise microclimates so IGS’s algorithms and processes ensure that the tower farms stay at the perfect temperature for crops.
“That is our second really big invention, and that is all patented as well,” Farquhar says.
The third really big achievement in IGS’s approach is that its towers are completely automated. There are no humans in the loop. “The reason for eliminating humans from the loop is that humans can make mistakes. They can also accidentally bring pests, diseases and other contaminants into the tower environment and they add no value,” he says.
No humans mean no wages in the growth area (though some employment is needed outside), eliminating another massive cost to farmers. Bringing seed trays into the towers and removing trays of fully grown plants is done robotically.
“Our towers are powered by AI, using growth recipes, a full knowledge of the environment the plants require, the nutrients and water volumes required and so on. It knows what vegetables, root and fruit crops are on each tray, how old they are and when the tray is mature. Because of this, we do not need pesticides and we do not need to wash (and bruise) the finished crops. As a result, we virtually double the shelf life of the crops produced, which supermarkets love,” he comments.
IGS’s growth towers create zero emissions. “We have had SEPA visit our towers and they have confirmed this,” he notes.
Once the system has been installed for a vertical farm, the resulting produce is ready to be shipped as a first harvest to supermarkets in something between two and three weeks. So the system is generating cash in less than a month.
Click image to read the full report online
One tower system will create somewhere around 25 tonnes of food, depending on the crops being grown. Each tower is around nine metres tall with a 6x7m base. They are paired together which means that as a unit they will produce between 40 and 50 tonnes of food per annum.
There is a corridor between the pair for the robot to fetch and carry new and mature trays. The whole system is bio-secure with an airlock and positive air pressure inside to make it impossible for pests and diseases to contaminate the tower.
Farquhar says that IGS is already talking to property developers around Europe who are looking at erecting large multi-storey car park-like buildings to house multiple vertical towers. This will create some real scale to vertical farming and will help to give towns, cities and countries vastly improved food independence and nutritional security.
According to Farquhar, IGS’s towers are already producing several lines of seed and starter plants to populate other farms.
This in turn will go a long way towards making these local farmers independent of outside nurseries for new plantings.
Find out more at www.intelligentgrowthsolutions.com
This article appeared in The Herald COP26 report on the sustainable food sector in Scotland
US: VIRGINIA - Brooke Point High School Installs Babylon Vertical Garden
“The Babylon garden is an important hands-on STEM learning tool that will benefit our students in many ways,” said Stafford County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Scott Kizner. “The fact that we are saving 2005 square feet of farmland in a booming county is also of great benefit to our community.”
April 3, 2021 | Schools & Education
From Stafford County Schools
High School students participating in the Culinary Arts, Business, IT, and IB Environmental Science programs at Brooke Point High School (BPHS) in Stafford are taking gardening to a whole new level, vertically. The school has partnered with Babylon Micro-Farms, Inc, to install a 15 square foot, hydroponic, vertical garden in its culinary arts room.
“The Babylon garden is an important hands-on STEM learning tool that will benefit our students in many ways,” said Stafford County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Scott Kizner. “The fact that we are saving 2005 square feet of farmland in a booming county is also of great benefit to our community.”
The garden will grow herbs, microgreens, and leafy greens. Students in the culinary arts program will use the produce in their menus, business students will develop a plan for using future crops, IT students will study how the app works and the AI functions of the garden, and IB Environmental students will study the impact of the garden on reducing environmental concerns that are associated with traditional farming.
“It’s important to me that we expose our students to innovative technology and ideas to inspire them to invent and create a more sustainable community,” said BPHS Principal Tim Roberts. “I am excited to see this important learning taking place, and to be able to provide our students with different strategies and ways of thinking in a very tangible way that promotes positive change.”
The garden is remotely managed by Babylon to ensure optimal growing conditions for the plants. Students will use an app that allows them to follow along with live data alerts, growing support, and the harvest schedule. The Babylon garden will initially grow crops that support the culinary arts program. After the first harvest, the garden is expected to produce $500 in produce per month.
Babylon vertical gardens produce three times the yield of traditional gardens, are grown without pesticides, resulting in 95% less food and 99% less plastic waste, and produce 71% fewer carbon emissions. According to Babylon, the Micro-Farms bring people closer to what they eat, create transparency in the food chain, build healthier relationships with food, and create an opportunity to change the story of how food is made.
This Indoor Vertical Farm Relies On Hydroponics To Grow Crops Anywhere During Any Season!
Hydroponic vertical farming is a form of farming that ditches the need for soil, substituting in different root-supporting materials like peat moss or Rockwool, allowing plants to grow in nutrient-rich water
Since 2013, the Green Concept Award has functioned as a platform for networking and been awarded to designers who have made globally sustainable and innovative products. The awards recognize products already on the market or in their conceptual stages that stand out for their design, innovation, and commitment to sustainability. Each year, the Green Concept Award jury members finalize a pre-selection list before awarding the winning product with the year’s title. One of the products on 2021’s pre-selection list is Farmhouse, a hydroponic vertical farm conceptualized by designers at Kingston University’s School of Art.
Hydroponic vertical farming is a form of farming that ditches the need for soil, substituting in different root-supporting materials like peat moss or Rockwool, allowing plants to grow in nutrient-rich water. The five-tiered Farmhouse is stocked with trays that contain all the materials necessary for optimal hydro-plant growth, like filtered, nutrient-infused water, oxygen, and root support.
Additionally, the vertical farm comes equipped with bright lights, either LEDs or HIDs, to replace the natural sunlight outdoors so that each plant can receive special lighting according to its own Daily Light Integral (DLI). Hydroponics is a sustainable farming practice for many reasons, but a significant one might be that by tending to a hydroponic farm, like Farmhouse, crops can be grown anywhere, during any time of the year.
The food we eat on a day-to-day basis travels about 1,500 miles before reaching our plate. While picking produce up at the supermarket seems simple, a lot of pollution takes place behind the scenes, all before hitting the shelves. Delivering produce to grocery stores across the globe requires lots of plastic packaging and plenty more fuel for transportation, increasing levels of microplastic and air pollution in the process. The designers behind Farmhouse aim to cut those unsustainable practices by designing a hydroponic farming solution that can be used in any home, during any season.
Designer: Kingston University (Kingston School of Art)
The five shelves of the Farmhouse contain all the necessary materials required for hydroponic farming.
Outfitted with shelves, Farmhouse grows crops using metal trays that guide the plant’s direction of growth.
A water system, filter, and root-support material all work together to help produce crops through hydroponics.
Without the convenience of natural sunlight, hydroponic farming relies on LEDs and HIDs to feed crops with light.
Thanks to a ribbed glass pane and warm color scheme, Farmhouse can fit into any room.
Coming in denim blue, moss green, rose pink, scarlet red, and blonde yellow – the Farmhouse also comes with a simple frame and intuitive build.
A raised top shelf feeds the plants inside the Farmhouse with plenty of airflow and oxygen.
Natufia Labs Raises $3.5M For Its Indoor Garden Appliance, Relocates To Saudi Arabia
Natufia makes an automated home gardening appliance about the size of a refrigerator that automatically controls elements such as lighting, as well as water and nutrient dispensing
Natufia Labs, the Estonia-based automated kitchen garden startup, announced today that it is relocating to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). KAUST is also leading a $3.5 million investment round in Natufia, awarding $2 million through the KAUST Innovation Fund. This brings the total amount of money raised by Natufia to $4.7 million.
Natufia makes an automated home gardening appliance about the size of a refrigerator that automatically controls elements such as lighting, as well as water and nutrient dispensing. The $13,000 Natufia cabinet uses seedpods that are placed in a special unit to germinate before being transferred to pots to grow and be harvested. Right now, Natufia’s appliance can grow leafy greens, herbs, and flowers.
In a press announcement sent to The Spoon, Natufia Labs CEO and Founder Gregory Lu said, “From Estonian icy-snow winters to the arid climate of Saudi Arabia, sustainable access to food supply is a global issue, so it is more than natural that this technology is thriving from Saudi Arabia.”
Problems with our existing food supply chain were revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic last year, causing a surge of interest in consumer indoor agriculture products. A new wave of high-tech appliances automate all the “hard” parts about growing food, allowing people to more easily grow and control their own food supply. Other players in the space including Gardyn, AeroGrow and Click & Grow have all seen demand increase during the pandemic.
With its new funding, Natufia said it will accelerate the development of its next models, hopefully bringing the price down to something more affordable for even more people.
FILED UNDER: CONNECTED KITCHEN FUNDING NEWS SMART GARDEN
How This Vertical Farm Grows 80,000 Pounds of Produce per Week
To some, the pristine growing conditions and perceived mechanical interference of a vertical farm can seem unnatural, but at Bowery Farming “interference” is actually not the goal at all. “We don’t really think about how people are involved in the growing process, but how to take people out of the growing process”
Bowery Farming uses technology to prioritize accessibility and sustainability in their produce growing operations
To some, the pristine growing conditions and perceived mechanical interference of a vertical farm can seem unnatural, but at Bowery Farming “interference” is actually not the goal at all. “We don’t really think about how people are involved in the growing process, but how to take people out of the growing process” says chief science officer Henry Sztul. “Our goal is actually to have as few people walking around our plants as possible.”
Bowery Farming is a network of vertical farms working to reengineer the growing process. Using a system of light and watering technology, Bowery is able to use 95 percent less water than a traditional outdoor farm, zero pesticides and chemicals, and grow food that tastes as good as anyone else’s.
Bowery Farming uses vertical farm-specific seeds that are optimized for flavor instead of insect resistance and durability. Seeds are mechanically pressed into trays of soil, and sent out into growing positions, or racks within the building that have their own lighting and watering systems. Each tray gets its own QR code so that they can be monitored and assigned a customized plan for water and light until they’re ready to be harvested.
Irving Fain, Bowery Farming’s founder and CEO contemplates the prediction from the United Nations that 70 to 80 percent of the world’s population will be living in and around cities in the next 30 years. “Figuring out ‘how do you feed and how do you provide fresh food to urban environments both more efficiently as well as more sustainably?’ is a very important question today, and an even more important question in the years to come.”
Agri-Tech Startup Granted £566,000 To Develop Growth Chambers
Driven by the need to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture, and to improve the nutritional quality and availability of fresh produce, the vertical farming market is a very exciting place to be for an agri-tech startup-like Grobotic Systems
Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency has just awarded Grobotic Systems and their consortium partners a grant worth £566,000 to fund the development of their cutting-edge growth chamber and to support the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy to transform food production.
Agri-tech startup Grobotic Systems believes the best way to deliver this promise is with their latest invention, a new class of plant growth chamber loaded with high-tech sensors and plugged into the internet. This state-of-the-art growth chamber will help vertical farmers identify the best way to grow plants to produce the most nutritious and environmentally-friendly food possible.
Managing director, Dr. Moschopoulos says “Through collaborating with industry leaders in photonics, controlled environment agriculture, and plant physiology, this funding enables Grobotic Systems to recruit additional staff, accelerate product development, and access the rapidly growing global vertical farming market with our innovative growth chamber technologies.”
“Driven by the need to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture, and to improve the nutritional quality and availability of fresh produce, the vertical farming market is a very exciting place to be for an agri-tech startup-like Grobotic Systems. Our novel technologies will help farmers grow healthier food more efficiently - that is better for the environment, better for the farmer, and better for the consumer.”
This project builds on the patent-pending growth chamber technology developed by Grobotic Systems over the past year. Grobotic Systems will lead this project in collaboration with partners from the Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics, Stockbridge Technology Centre, and the University of Sheffield.
Founded in 2018 by Dr Alexis Moschopoulos, a plant geneticist, and Richard Banks, an electronics engineer, Grobotic Systems is a Yorkshire-based startup engaged in the design and manufacture of innovative plant growth chambers for plant science research.
For more information:
Grobotic Systems
Alexis Moschopoulos, managing director
alexis@groboticsystems.com
www.groboticsystems.com
Publication date: Fri 8 Jan 2021
New Technology To Speed Discovery of Sustainable Crop Solutions For Farmers
Terramera announced the launch of six custom, state-of-the-art plant growth chambers. Many crop protection products fail in the field because labs and greenhouses do not accurately replicate real-world conditions
Terramera announced the launch of six custom, state-of-the-art plant growth chambers. Many crop protection products fail in the field because labs and greenhouses do not accurately replicate real-world conditions. Each chamber offers precise control over temperature (ranging from 5 to 40 degrees Celsius), humidity, and light to simulate many possible field conditions, from cool nights and morning mists to desert and subtropical conditions, and will be outfitted with a Terramera-built automation system for end-to-end integration.
Automation will enable experiments to run entirely without human intervention including watering, spraying, nutrient dosing, and imaging of the plants throughout their lifecycle, dramatically accelerating data collection for product performance and increasing accuracy with Terramera’s industry-leading Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) platform.
“Customized growth chambers allow us to simulate weather to study disease and insect infestations with integrated treatment and imaging systems in one automated system -- replicated six times for parallel studies,” said Annett Rozek, Terramera Chief Scientific Officer. “This is as close as we can get to real-world conditions in a research environment and will deliver solutions as rapidly and efficiently as possible.”
The new growth chambers bring Terramera’s total to 12 and are part of a larger technological scale-up for the company, which also brought a new liquid handling robot on board. Terramera’s own machine learning (ML) model named the robot, “Enzing,” which is integrated into Terramera’s fully automated in-vitro screening and data analysis pipeline. The robot has already enabled Terramera’s largest in-vitro screening project yet, testing the company’s Actigate library against numerous plant disease pathogens.
“This marks an exciting milestone for Terramera and a step-change in the industry by adding a new, essential capacity,” said Karn Manhas, Terramera Founder, and CEO. “Simulated environment studies are the missing link between controlled environments like the lab or greenhouse and field trials since many products fail because lab and greenhouse conditions are too different from the outside world on a farm. This technology increases our throughput, allowing us to predict outcomes more accurately, allowing us to quickly scale our knowledge and technologies to make farming healthier, more sustainable and productive while turning back the clock on climate change.”
For more information:
Terramera
www.terramera.com
4 Dec 2020
Self-Sustainable Planter + Composter For Indoor Gardening
The planter features a companion app, which treats gardening as a game, showing the stages of plant growth as “levels” for your real-life veggies. If you were a teen in the late 2000s, you might remember the popular Facebook game, Farmville? Imagine that concept but in real life
02-12-2020 09:13 | Yanko Design
To reduce their environmental impact, my parents have started composting their food waste. Great idea, but there are two small problems with their set-up: one, my parents aren’t gardeners, so the resulting manure is usually scattered on empty soil beds (which the weeds appreciate), and two, the composter lives in the backyard, which means they keep a plastic container on the back porch for their discarded orange peels and wilted salad (not the prettiest sight). Overall, the composter is not living up to its full potential, because it doesn’t suit my parents’ lifestyle.
Segue to the Sustainable Family Farm, a miniature composter and planter that is best suited for indoor life. When I saw this design, my first thought was Ah-hah, the perfect Christmas gift for my parents … in theory, since it hasn’t entered the market yet. A mini-composter isn’t a novel idea; in fact, you can make your own with a plastic jug, soil, and some worms. However, the Sustainable Family Farm sets itself apart in two ways: first, by integrating seamlessly into the household regardless of the members’ gardening/composting experience, second, by making gardening into a fun experience for the family.
The product accomplishes this first point by utilizing all the food waste in the household without requiring a lot of additional effort. All you have to do is dump your compostable scraps into the plant incubator and monitor your veggies’ growth. The amount of maintenance that goes into the gardening depends on the seeds you choose — and there plenty of low maintenance options, like basil or cilantro. The Sustainable Family Farm accomplishes its second goal, making gardening a fun activity with the power of smartphones. The planter features a companion app, which treats gardening as a game, showing the stages of plant growth as “levels” for your real-life veggies. If you were a teen in the late 2000s, you might remember the popular Facebook game, Farmville? Imagine that concept but in real life. Or, you know … regular farming. (Jeez, I’ve exposed myself as a phone-addicted city-dweller.)
The Sustainable Family Farm, I think, is one of the most accessible urban planter concepts I’ve seen. Its low maintenance process makes it as easy as possible for anyone to grow herbs or small vegetables. You just need to buy the seeds and worms to get started – the circle of life takes care of the rest.
This concept won the European Product Design Award in “Home Interior Products/Household Appliances” and “Design for Society/Design for Sustainability.” An earlier version of this design was also featured on Yanko Design.
Designer: Chaozhi Lin
Click here for more information.
Photo Courtesy of Yanko Design
New Viking Professional Micro Green And Herb Growing Cabinet In Select Markets
Viking Range, LLC, a leader in kitchen technology, is pleased to announce the rollout of a new Viking Professional Micro Green & Herb Growing Cabinet. The 24” under counter unit allows consumers to grow herbs and micro greens 365 days a year.
The unit includes two growing trays, two 4” propagation domes, two hydroponic growing mats, pH and TDS calibration solutions, measuring syringe, sifter, hydrogen peroxide and a 20 gallon tub.
A fully contained ecosystem is ideal for growing herbs and micro greens. The cabinet is equipped with high output T5 growing lights to replicate the sun’s rays and get the best growth possible. The light is distributed evenly with diffuser panels. The system also features a filter with a water pump for irrigation. It can be manually filled or connected with city water and drain.
The digital system is fully automated for light, watering and air circulation for optimal growth. It comes with 39 preprogrammed cycles for the most common greens, plus it is fully programmable for custom cycles.
Each zone in the unit accommodates one 10”x20” growing flat. Users can simply sow their seeds in the flats using traditional soil or hydroponic media. Cover the trays with the unit’s humidity domes and place them in the cabinet. Next, set the growing cycle for your particular plants and when the seeds begin to sprout, the humidity domes should be removed. Grow until the herbs are ready to harvest, depending on the variety of plant, this cycle could be as little as seven days.
The herb grower is compact and installs under countertops in any space. It also features removable growing drawers on easy gliding rollers with drainage holes in the rear for ebb and flow irrigation. The double pane tempered glass allows easy viewing.
The innovative Viking Micro Green & Herb Growing Cabinet is now available at select authorized Viking dealers in the Chicago metro area and the state of California.
Viking Range, LLC originated ultra-premium commercial-type appliances for the home, creating a whole new category of home appliances. Committed to innovative product design, unrivaled performance and peerless quality, Viking is headquartered in Greenwood, Mississippi, and is a subsidiary of The Middleby Corporation, a long-time leader in commercial kitchen technology. Viking appliances are recognized globally as the foremost brand in the high-end appliance industry and are sold through a network of premium appliance distributors and dealers worldwide.
For additional product information, to locate a Viking dealer in your area, or to request a quote, please visit www.vikingrange.com. VIKING is a registered trademark of Viking Range, LLC.