Chinese plant scientists build unmanned VF

Added on 19 December 2023

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Chinese plant scientists build unmanned VF

CHENGDU -- Inside a building on the outskirts of Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan province, 16 robots are programmed to tend vegetables grown on 20-tier vertically-installed rack.

Standing beside the 10-meter-high unmanned greenhouse rack, the tallest of its kind in the world, the urban farm's chief scientist Yang Qichang boasted that a total of 24,000 vegetables had been planted in a floorage of 200 square meters.

The plant factory was built at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences' Institute of Urban Agriculture (IUA). Its cultivation procedures are completely automated, including sowing, thinning, harvesting and packaging.

In an open field, the lettuce usually takes about 70 days to grow from seed to harvest, but in this urban farm, the growth period can be shortened to about 35 days, resulting in 10 crops a year. Its annual output is expected to reach 50 tonnes.

Nutrition has not suffered as a result of rapid growth and high productivity. The crude protein content of alfalfa grown by crop breeding accelerators has reached 30 percent, about 10 percentage points higher than that of normal species.

The alfalfa can be harvested once every 12 days. Crop yield has increased by more than 20 times when compared to nature's maximum of four harvests per year.