Vertical Farm In Shipping Container Solving Problem of Land Loss

SARAH HUDSON, The Weekly Times

April 3, 2018

FRANK Donato opened the doors to his trial vertical farm, a shipping container on his 4ha Mornington Peninsula Hydroponics business.

“These are the LED lights, worth $200 each but last for 50,000 hours,” he said, pulling out a 1.5 metre long beam, designed to project 700 nanometres on the light spectrum.

“That’s on the red/pink spectrum, which is required for plant photosynthesis.

“And this,” he said, pointing to a door-mounted machine, “is another expensive piece of equipment, a carbon dioxide injector imported from New Zealand.”

Five years ago, prompted by the annual summer loss of greenhouse crops to extreme temperatures, Frank ran his $20,000 shipping container trial for about four months, proving he was able to grow 1200 basil plants at a time in different seasons to maturity in just over two weeks (compared to up to five weeks in winter).

“The plants even met Coles specifications,” the 60-year-old added.

So impressed was he by the results, he is now planning to transform his farm.

Currently Frank and his wife Luana have seven igloos and a total growing area of more than 3000 square metres at Mt Martha. It is a mix of plastic and shade cloth, with one “smart” computer-controlled glasshouse that has a roof opening to allow heat to escape.

Year-round they grow more than 10 hydroponic herbs, including 2000 basil plants weekly, and 2000 coriander plants, as well as a range of micro-herbs.

They grow eight lettuce varieties, with the most popular being 1000 plants of green oak weekly.

And there are about 400 plants each of two tomato varieties, yielding 8kg per plant.

The Donatos have a nursery growing out their own seedlings under LED lights, planting out after an average of two weeks’ germination.

HEAT IS ON

THE hydroponic system is conventional, using rock-wool as a media, and coconut fibre for tomatoes. Mains gas is used for heating, with the carbon dioxide pumped back in to igloos to encourage plant growth.

To minimise inputs they use biological controls, introducing predatory mites and wasps to control two-spotted mite, aphids and thrip; only once has he had to use sprays to combat downey mildew.

The majority of their stock they sell to Richies supermarkets, as well as having stalls at the Victorian and South Melbourne markets, with a small amount through their on-farm cafe, open seven days a week, which is run by one of their two sons, Nick.

At their peak about two years ago they sold 10,000 basil plants a week to Coles.

However the Donato family have this year sold off 3ha of their property for housing development, retaining 1ha on which Frank plans to demolish his current igloos within the next year and rebuild a 330sq m enclosed warehouse for vertical farming, using LED lights.

Vertical farming, also called controlled-environment agriculture, uses indoor farming techniques where all environmental factors are controlled, using artificial light and vertically stacked layers.

Frank said once the new system was up and running he would grow about four tiers of plants, producing more than five times as much as a conventional greenhouse of the same size, growing at a lower cost, able to control the amount of light and maintain a steady temperature of 21C.

“Every summer I lose crops to heat — this year alone it got up to 53C in the igloos on one of the very hot days,” he said.

“Whereas with LED it will be a fully controlled atmosphere and I’ll have no losses — including no losses from disease or pests.

“I will be able to exactly predict what product will be available and when.”

He plans to introduce automated systems — connected remotely to his mobile phone — such as humidity-controlled reverse cycle airconditioning, automated dosing for fertigation, and carbon dioxide injections, all fully solar-powered.

BOOK WORM

FRANK has closely followed overseas developments in vertical farming through reading widely, subscribing to hortidaily.com, as well as regular trips abroad. While he was conducting his shipping container trials he travelled to the UK; last year a Swedish company visited his farm to trial LED lights.

This year he will travel to the Netherlands to visit the Philips lighting research facility.

“In the past two years alone their lights have become 30 per cent more efficient,” Frank said. “I was the first person in Australia to bring in Philips LED lights five years ago.

“I’ve waited all this time because the technology has been rapidly advancing. It’s now got to a point where the technology is accessible. Maybe from now on costs might come down.

“One of the problems with my shipping container trials was that I couldn’t get the red into the red lettuce and now they’ve developed technology that enables that.”

Frank studied agricultural science at LaTrobe University, graduating in 1980. He immediately started on the Mount Martha property with his father Nick, initially farming 21,000 cage laying hens.

When the egg industry deregulated, the father and son moved to hydroponics.

“We lost a lot of money with the licences. We paid $250,000 in 1980 and with deregulation they gave us back $26,000.”

With little horticultural knowledge, Frank and Nick started growing strawberries and tomatoes.

Frank said while he loved farming, he conceded that growing crops in an enclosed building with artificial lighting diminished the outdoor experience.

“The thing is, you’ve got to imagine how we’re going to feed the world’s population, because we’re increasing at such a rapid rate and we’re using all our farm land for housing.”