As growing operations expand, the need for technological enhancements becomes more critical. A grower working multiple sites may need the advantages of remote monitoring to track and manage growing conditions effectively. The demands of an expanding operation make precision management especially valuable, as growers juggle their time to make the most efficient use of their resources.

1. Automated Technologies Changing
The Way We Grow
The Future
of Indoor
Farming
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By Alex Stone

2. 02
03 - Introduction
04 - Indoor Agriculture: Solutions For Growing Up
10 - Agricultural Technology
11 - Controlling Climate
17 - Fertigation and Irrigation
21 - Data Analytics, AI, and Forecasting
26 - Growlink Resources
Table of Contents
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3. Introduction
Indoor Farming is the future of
feeding America, and the world.
It allows for vertical integration
that saves valuable resources,
regardless of climate conditions
or time of year. Automation
promises higher yields and
provides local food production
that traditional farming is unable
to deliver.
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4. There are 7.5 billion people in the world as of 2019, and
population growth, erosion, and pollution have resulted
in one-third of the earth's arable land being lost in just the
last 40 years. The result of a rapidly expanding population
and shrinking farmable land is the current global food
crisis.
This crisis doesn't only impact people in the most
depressed and impoverished regions of the world - many
cities are also facing considerable challenges in providing
access to affordable fresh food.
Indoor agriculture solves the need for vast swaths of
arable farmland by moving production indoors and
taking to the skies - using vertical space to vastly
increase the amount of food production that can be
accomplished per square foot.
Indoor farms can also be tailored to the interior
dimensions of almost any building, meaning food can
be grown directly in the heart of even the densest cities.
The result is significant increases in the volume of crops
produced and shorter localized supply chains, ensuring
freshness and affordability regardless of location.
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Challenge: Shrinking Land
and Growing Populations
Solution: Going Vertical
and Shrinking Supply
Chains

5. Indoor farming, or indoor agriculture refers to the growing of crops - often on large
scales - completely indoors, in controlled environments using artificial lighting and
humanmade nutrition and irrigation systems. Unlike traditional farming, which
requires an enormous amount of land and is subject to the whims of mother nature,
indoor farming can utilize vertical space. It provides a highly tunable growing
environment, enabling indoor growers to maximize their crop yields while
minimizing resource usage and costs.
Growth in indoor agriculture has been rapid, and the indoor farming technology
market is projected to grow to over $40 billion by 2022. The move towards indoor
solutions is easy to understand, as indoor agriculture solves several problems, both
emerging and prolonged, that traditional agriculture can't.
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What Is Indoor Farming?

6. 06
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Challenge: Traditional Farming is
Limited by Geographical and
Environmental Conditions
Traditional farming is limited heavily by mother nature.
The crops available in any given area are entirely
dependent on environmental suitability, including soil,
seasonal variations in temperature and precipitation, and
more. Natural events like droughts and cold snaps can
eliminate entire crops outright, and crops that survive
often have to travel long distances to reach the plates of
their consumers, resulting in substantial loss along the
way.

7. Solution: Indoor Farming
Eliminates Crop Loss and
Resource Waste
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Because indoor agriculture offers near-complete control
over the growing environment, crop selection is no
longer limited by geographical region. Almost any crop
can be grown almost anywhere as long as the right mix
of light, nutrients, water, and air are provided - all
completely tailorable on an indoor farm. Complete
environmental control also means that crops can be
grown regardless of season, resulting in affordable, year-
round access to produce that otherwise would have
been expensive or unavailable at certain times of the
year.

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Challenge: The World's
Drinkable
Fresh Water Supply is in Crisis
Over 800 million people worldwide lack access to clean
drinking water. While some progress has been made in
expanding access, even places close to home like Flint,
Michigan, are in crisis. Yet, it's estimated that as much as
70% of the freshwater directed for agriculture purposes is
wasted, making traditional farming a significant
contributor to the world's water scarcity problem.

9. Solution: Indoor Agriculture
Significantly Reduces Water
Usage
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Vertical farming using hydroponic irrigation systems all
but eliminate water waste and cut total water usage
down by 70-95%. With 70% of the world's freshwater
used for agriculture, it's clear how significant the waste
reductions provided by vertical farming are, and how
much water could potentially be saved and redirected
for human consumption.

10. WHAT IS AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY?
10
Controlling Climate
Fertigation and Irrigation
Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Forecasting
AgTech represents the application of technology, specifically software and hardware
technology, to the field of farming. AgTech is an industry that encompasses diverse
solutions to almost every step in the food production process. One of the primary
factors in the efficiency and effectiveness of indoor agriculture is the newly emerging
technologies that enable unparalleled environmental control. These technologies
allow farmers to dial in near-perfect growing conditions year-round, resulting in
improved crop size and quality. The following chapters cover three of those areas of
technological advance:
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11. Light, water, nutrients, and air - these are the four primary
elements that plants need for healthy growth. But in addition to
these four, there is a wide variety of other factors that determine
ideal growing conditions and climate, including temperature,
humidity levels, and CO2 concentration.
Indoor agriculture provides growers with the ability to precisely
control the environmental conditions in their growing facilities, so
that, with the keen understanding of their plants' needs and the
right technology, a crop can be provided with temperature,
humidity and CO2 levels finely tuned to deliver maximum quality
and yield.
You can also monitor VPD, dewpoint, moisture deficit, EC, VWC,
light intensity, just to name a few, but for now we'll discuss the
basics.
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Controlling Climate

12. How Temperature, Humidity, and Other Factors Impact
Plant Growth
In an indoor growing environment, there are several ways that temperature control can aid
plant growth, including maintaining ideal growth temperatures and managing canopy heating.
Relative humidity impacts plant transpiration, and photosynthesis and extreme humidity levels
can be as harmful as extreme temperatures. Finally, CO2 levels have a direct impact on
photosynthesis, and managing them is key to maximizing yields.
Different types of plants require different temperatures to facilitate ideal growth. Each type of
crop has four temperature thresholds - optimum minimum, absolute minimum, optimum
maximum, absolute maximum. The range between ideal minimum an ideal maximum facilitates
the best possible growth. Beyond the absolute minimum or absolute maximum, a plant's
growth is severely hindered, and the risk of death skyrockets. Indoor climate control enables
growers to ensure their crops enjoy their optimal temperature range, ensuring the best possible
quality and yield regardless of the outside temperature. Heat mapping makes it possible to
identify both widescale and isolated areas of indoor crops that don't conform to ideal
temperature conditions, allowing spot solutions to be employed as needed.
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13. Managing Canopy Heating
In nature, the risk of damage from overheating is minimal except in prolonged
heatwaves. But indoor growing environments use vertical structures and overhead
lighting, making canopy overheating a genuine concern.
Proximity exposure to hot lights is the most common cause of canopy
overheating, and the consequences range from dried out tissue to reduced
photosynthetic capabilities from even moderate heat stress. The simplest solution
to canopy overheating is to increase the distance between plant tops and their
light sources. LED lights can also be employed to provide the same light coverage
at significantly reduced temperatures. But in either case, no remedial action can be
taken until hot spots are identified - a primary function of heat mapping.
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14. 14
Maintaining Healthy Humidity
Levels
Relative humidity - the amount of water in the air as a
percentage of the amount required for saturation - has a
significant impact on plant stomatal opening, respiration,
and photosynthesis. Warmer air can hold more water, and
thus for the same level of moisture, has lower relative
humidity. The result is increased transpiration. Colder air has
the opposite effect. Its lower capacity to hold water means
less room for a plant to pass vapor into the air. Control over
relative humidity enables growers to set the ideal
temperatures for their crops, and then to also tune the
amount of moisture in the air to ensure the healthiest
possible transpiration and photosynthesis.
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15. 15
Controlling Carbon Dioxide Levels
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is another critical factor in
photosynthesis and another mechanism that impacts when
a plant's stomata open and close. Outside air contains
roughly 340ppm CO2 by volume, and while plants are
perfectly happy to grow at this CO2 concentration, they can
benefit from higher levels. Elevating CO2 levels to 1000ppm
can increase photosynthesis and the energy it provides to
growing plants by up to 50% - a considerable improvement.
That's especially important to consider that carbon dioxide
levels in poorly ventilated indoor growing environments can
quickly drop well below the ambient 400ppm due to the
high density of CO2 hungry plants.
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16. Heat Mapping Technology and Climate Visualization
Heat mapping is a rapidly emerging indoor agriculture technique that uses an array of environmental sensors to
create a visual image of climate conditions across a growing environment. Heat mapping allows a grower to
monitor and manage at macroclimate levels across their operation. It also enables growers to identify
microclimates - small pockets of space that experience altered environmental conditions due to proximity to
equipment, ventilation anomalies, and many other factors.
Traditional environmental monitoring tools are inadequate for modern indoor growing operations because they
lack precision. A thermostat, for instance, provides a measurement of air temperature that only reflects the local
temperature around its single sensor. That means that the temperature displayed by a standard thermometer is
not reflective of the environment as a whole and, as a result, is almost useless.
Heat mapping uses an extensive array of sensors, ranging from thermal imaging cameras to standalone multi
climate sensors, to pull data from potentially hundreds of points across a growing environment. Those sensors
provide information on both the ambient air temperature and the surface temperatures of plants and equipment.
When that data is combined and analyzed, it paints a clear picture of an entire growing environment in both
horizontal and vertical. That synthesized data is presented to growers as a set of color-coded maps covering all
types of data collected from temperature to humidity to CO2 and more. The resulting level of intelligence
enables growers to find tune the environmental condition in their operations on an almost plant by plant basis.
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17. Fertigation and Irrigation
All experienced indoor growers are familiar with the importance of a well designed
properly functioning irrigation system. Whether growing in soil or via one of the
many hydroponic meduims currently employed throughout the industry, ensuring
plants have access to a steady supply of the water and nutrients they need is critical
for crop health and devlopment.
While lighting is relatively static and straightforward in nature, irrigation systems -
especially large industrial ones - can be complicated, potentially expensive, and
require regular maintenance to ensure proper operation. The alternative - hand
watering - while certainly more straightforward, is hugely time-consuming and
subject to human error, making it far inferior to automated irrigation. Not only are
even the most simple drip irrigation systems more reliable than manual watering
and feeding, but they also offer a significant additional benefit - the ability to use
automated fertigation systems to deliver precision dosages of nutrients.
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18. Creating Ideal Nutrient Environments with Fertigation
Fertigation is the process of injecting fertilizer or other water-soluble nutrient products directly into a crop irrigation system. The
goal of fertigation is to enable farmers to dial in the ideal nutrient levels for their crops, ensuring that their plants are neither
underfed, leading to suboptimal growth, or overfed, leading to problems like nutrient burn. Fertigation has been a popular solution
in high-end industrial crops for some time, and it's enjoyed a recent jolt of popularity with smaller operations as well, particularly
among cannabis growers.
First and foremost, fertigation systems enable growers to deliver incredibly precise nutrient doses across their entire crop, enabling
nutrient deficiencies to be treated as needed and ensuring every plant exists in an ideal growing environment possible. Best of all,
they do it automatically - monitored and controlled by a central computer, removing the vast majority of human labor and human
error from the watering process. That significant reduction in labor is the second major benefit of fertigation.
Finally, fertigation systems offer several environmental benefits. The efficiency of fertigation not only leads to reduced waste, but it
also leads to healthier plant roots and better water uptake, further reducing the amount of water needed to grow healthy crops.
The design of fertigation systems requires a high level of isolation from the surrounding environment, meaning that harmful
chemical leaching is reduced as well.
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19. 19
Pros
Precision nutrient dosing delivered evenly across
the entire system to ensure ideal feeding and
growth for the entire crop.
Staff-hours associated with manual watering and
feeding are eliminated, as are the costly errors that
can arise from hand mixing.
Reduced water consumption across the system
enables optimum plant growth while minimizing a
crop's impact on freshwater shortages.
Reduced fertilizer volume and isolation from the
surrounding environment minimize the potential
damage from harmful chemical leaching.
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Cons
Initial set up costs can be significant, especially if a
scalable irrigation system is not already in place.
Fertigation hardware must be installed evenly
across the entire irrigation system to ensure even
feeding, requiring more units and material for large
systems.
To maintain even pressure across the entire system
and to prevent isolated fertilizer build-up, regular
cleaning and maintenance are required.
Pros and Cons of Fertigation

20. 20
Fertigation System Design
While fertigation is technically just the combination of fertilization and irrigation, and thus could potentially even
be done through hand watering, a modern fertigation system is an extension of the monitor -> analyze -> control
ethos behind all data-driven agriculture. The nutrient solution is held in a tank and is fed into the water supply in
carefully proportioned ratios using pumps. That fertilized water supply is then moved through the irrigation
system and delivered to the plants through drip-feed, or whichever irrigation method has been chosen.
The pH and electrical conductivity (EC) levels throughout the system as well as levels within the plants
themselves, must be carefully measured to ensure proper system operation. Monitoring the plants visually is
inadequate since, by the time plants exhibit damage or stunted growth may be too late to correct. Instead,
sensors are used across the system, which feed data to a computerized control unit. That control unit compares
the actual pH and EC levels across the system to the desired levels programmed by the grower and automatically
adjusts fertilizer concentration to maintain the determined levels.
In contrast to manual watering and fertilizing, which are generic and prone to error and feast-famine style cycles,
the constant monitoring and adjustment in an automated fertigation system ensures that each plant is delivered
the correct nutrient dose that it needs at that moment as determined by the control unit, carefully timed and
measured for optimal growth.
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21. Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence,
and Forecasting
In the 21st century, information drives almost everything. Our
appetite for data points and analysis is insatiable, and modern
agriculture is no different. Today's most advanced farms, both
indoor and out, are tapping into modern technology's ability to
collect and process data, and they're using it to produce larger,
healthier, more valuable crops.
Data-driven agriculture represents so much value that some of
the worlds leading technology incubators - from MIT to Microsoft
- are focusing on how we can better use technology and
information to grow more significant quantities of higher quality,
lower-cost foods.
From computer vision to artificial intelligence and machine
learning, technology is changing the way the world farms.
Advanced data and analytics are particularly valuable to indoor
growers as they provide the intelligence needed to run the
precision automation that makes indoor agriculture such a
powerful solution to so many problems.
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22. 22
Advanced-Data Analytics in Indoor Agriculture
Data collection and analysis are at the heart of the automation revolution sweeping most forms of agriculture.
And while 54% of farms are already wired with sensor-enabled climate control systems, with 75% of those
systems connected to the web, that leaves almost half of all farms currently operating primarily in the blind - a
massive opportunity for growth.
Farms equipped for data analytics can collect information every minute of every day thanks to a network of
interconnected sensors spread out across their crops. Those sensors collect information on the plants, the
growing mediums, and the ambient environment, automatically capturing data on everything from C02 and EC
levels to nutrient uptake to temperature and in the most advanced systems, even visual data like plant height and
pest damage.
The constant stream of data provided by round the clock remote monitoring is fed into on premise computers
with specialized software designed to process and interpret, thus turning the raw numbers into useful
intelligence. That intelligence can then be used manually by farmers for business and operational decisions or fed
directly into automated control units to fine-tune the ideal growing environment without the need for any
human intervention whatsoever.
Most impressively of all, emerging technologies are enabling data analysis to move beyond individual farms and
onto the cloud allowing the indoor agriculture community as a whole to benefit from the data from each
individual grow operation.
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23. The Role of Artificial Intelligence in
Farming
Artificial intelligence (AI) describes machines and software that
respond to inputs and stimulation in a way that mimics human
intelligence. The goal is for these machines to be able to make
decisions at a level that equals - or exceeds - a human's ability. The
Brookings Institution describes them as intentional, intelligent,
and adaptive. Adaptive is of particular importance, as AI needs to
be able to learn. That brank of AI, known as machine learning,
enables AI machines to take in data and analyze it to make a
decision, but also to use the results of that analysis to expand and
improve their ability to perform the same decision-making task in
the future. ->
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24. Data Analytics, AI, and Forecasting
From an agricultural standpoint, AI plays a huge part in the data-driven automation of indoor farms.
AI-enabled farms take in the constant flow of data provided by integrated sensory suites and use it to
continually improve their analytical models, growing increasingly capable of automatically and
autonomously making the right decisions to maximize crop growth. The most advanced systems are
now incorporating computer vision - software designed to interpret visual data from the visible
spectrum and infrared cameras. Computer vision enabled AI systems not only to synthesize the
numerical data they're fed, but the can also compare it to visual images of the crops to learn what
changes in the appearance of a crop mean for its health. Such systems are already being put to use
to monitor things like pest infestations automatically and to deploy control measures automatically.
One principal in the increasing effectiveness of AI as an agricultural tool is the ability to centralize the
data collected from networked farms since more data means faster machine learning. For instance,
Growlink's AI Beta program uses the network of farms currently using Growlink's AI technology to
collect 200,000,000 data points per month - far more than could ever be collected from a single farm.
That data is then used to improve the AI systems deployed on each farm, a perfect demonstration of
the 'all for one and one for all' aspect of networked AI development.
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25. 25
Forecasting Future Yields
One of the most powerful capabilities of AI-enabled agriculture is
that the systems can use historical data - both from the farm they're
installed on, and outside sources like other farms across a network -
to develop highly accurate yield forecasts based on current crop
conditions. Predictions driven by AI and machine learning are so
accurate that they're already being applied by researchers to turn
publicly available data into an understanding of global crop yields in
support of the effort to eliminate world hunger.
At the single farm level, accurate forecasts of crop yields enable
operators to make more informed decisions about everything from
harvest planning to crop variety to consumer purchasing and
beyond. Taking the guesswork out of managing an indoor farm is a
critical factor in eliminating waste, smoothing out ebbs and flows in
crop production, and maximizing longer-term sustainable
profitability.
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26. 26
How Growlink Can Help
Growlink is at the forefront of the data revolution changing the face of modern agriculture. Their advanced
sensory and control products already enable hundreds of farmers to maximize yields and crop quality through
automated systems that never sleep and require near-zero human input. WIFI enabled cloud-based systems are
designed to provide easy integration and full scalability of a suite of sensors, cameras, control units, irrigation, and
nutrient delivery systems. Revolutionary Plant Health AI Beta program provides participating members with full
access to the AI-driven pest control, disease prevention, and yield prediction benefits of an integrated network of
over 2,200 connected agriculture devices.
Growlink provides all of the hardware and software solutions that modern indoor farms and greenhouses need to
operate at the forefront of agriculture's current data revolution. Regardless of the size of your operation or the
crops you produce, they have the products and the expertise necessary to get your farm wired up with the
sensory monitoring and control technology that drives modern automation and improved crop performance.
Whether you're looking to gain full control over climate, revolutionalize your irrigation systems, or harness the
unparalleled automation power of AI, they'd love to hear from you. Visit their website at www.growlink.com to
see a full list of products and contact them to speak to one of their specialists about how they can help you and
your crops benefit from the future of indoor farming today.
Growlink, Inc.
www.growlink.com
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