Article
Version 1
This version is not peer-reviewed
Open-Source Indoor Horizontal Grow Structure Designs
Version 1
: Received: 27 August 2024 / Approved: 27 August 2024 / Online: 28 August 2024 (10:44:17 CEST)
How to cite: Qian, J.-Y.; Pearce, J. M. Open-Source Indoor Horizontal Grow Structure Designs. Preprints 2024, 2024082001. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202408.2001.v1 Qian, J.-Y.; Pearce, J. M. Open-Source Indoor Horizontal Grow Structure Designs. Preprints 2024, 2024082001. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202408.2001.v1
Abstract
Agrivoltaic agrotunnels are currently designed for high density grow walls that are not amenable to bush berries or root crops. Commercial grow bins provide deeper substrates for produce with more root systems but have high costs per unit growing area. To overcome the economic limitations of grow bins, this study applies the distributed manufacturing open-source design paradigm to develop four designs for low-cost open source structures. The designs target root vegetables and bush fruit specifically to be adopted by remote communities with limited or no outdoor growing environment to offset the market price for imported fresh produce. The indoor growing designs provide the necessary structure for supporting grow light and grow bins and enabled the transplanted berry plants to flower and produced fruits. They provide a comparable amount (110L) or more of grow volume from 106 to 192 L. The water reservoir volume for the commercial system (62 L) and grow area (0.5 m³) is surpassed by all new designs that range from 64 to 192 L and 0.51 to 0.76 m³, respectively. These superior properties are possible with material costs for all four designs that save more than 90% of the economic cost of the commercial systems.
Keywords
indoor growing; grow bins; aeroponic; hydroponic; mechanical design; distributed fabrication; open hardware; controlled environmental agriculture; sustainable agriculture; agriculture
Subject
Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Comments (0)
We encourage comments and feedback from a broad range of readers. See criteria for comments and our Diversity statement.
Leave a public commentSend a private comment to the author(s)
* All users must log in before leaving a comment