The Role of AI in Vertical Farming

Crop protection through early detection

• Automation is nothing new in agriculture, but artificial intelligence is something completely different. It’s not a second pair of robotic hands—it’s a second brain, a second set of senses.

• AI can provide the platform for a full suite of monitoring at the level of the individual plant. With the right technology in place, growers can use AI to identify which plants have nutrient, water, and/or light deficiencies, or detect the presence of disease or pests, in real time and without invasive procedures. Studies already show that trained machine-learning and deep-understanding models can identify bacterial, viral, and fungal diseases based on remote image capture.

• The end result is an early and exact prescription for remedy through observation and hard data, all of which can be translated to:

• • Environmental controls: adjusting the temperature or humidity.
  • Irrigation systems: adjusting the composition of the nutrients fed via water.
  • Lighting systems: adjusting the light recipe and energy use.

• If a farmer's mission is to ensure plant health, maximize crop yield, and remain consistent in an environment of variables—and it is!—it helps to have a second opinion as close to as keen as their own.

Big data at the dinner table

The modern farmer produces half a million data points every day, but there’s only so much data a farm can convert into valuable, actionable information. And with the advent of vertical farming, where data collection drives the whole operation, that number is only going to go up from here.

What could we achieve by pushing the needle of utilization closer to 100 percent, even as we add more raw data into the mix? If AI can allow farmers to wield better control over large amounts of data, be they sensor readouts or rates of energy consumption, they can then mold this data into practical applications:

• Real-time harvesting schedules
• Updating yield predictions
• Resource management strategies
• Energy efficiency plans

By driving down operational costs and delivering consistently delicious produce, AI-powered vertical farming can finally break through as a contender in the ag space.

Planting seeds of possibility

• By training AI during the natural course of operation, farmers can use this revolutionary tool to investigate and catalog the genetic properties of the plants they grow, and then breed crops that contain ideal genetic blueprints.

• • Are you trying to grow for scale? Then let AI guide you toward the plant traits that correlate with faster grow cycles or optimized nutritional requirements.
  • Are you growing for taste? Give the customers what they want and isolate the plants with the best flavor profiles to leave your mark on tastebuds everywhere.
  • Are you growing for effect? Say you’re a cannabis farmer looking to grow flower that fills a gap in your product line. Then let AI scour the data for the cannabinoids, terpenes, and more you need to bring about the next big thing at the neighborhood dispensary.

• In short, what many industries are finding, agriculture included, is that artificial intelligence is just as much a screwdriver as it is a paintbrush.

Montel: Ready for whatever the future holds

• As advanced as AI is, in agriculture and beyond, the best is yet to come.

• Whatever tomorrow brings, Montel is committed to engineering versatile vertical farming solutions, custom-built for the operation you dream of, where the technological meets the natural and harmonizes to sustainably and reliably produce an abundance of healthy crops.

• Montel vertical grow systems are endlessly customizable, the finest foundation on which to innovate agriculture through AI. GREENRAK, GROWRAK, and GROW&ROLL vertical grow systems are already the bedrock for so many indoor farming innovators because of their farming-first design—more accessibility, better utilization of space, and the highest degree of adaptability and control of any vertical rack for controlled environment agriculture on the market.

• For more information, check out Montel vertical farming solutions, or speak to your local Authorized Montel Distributor today for a free, no-obligation consultation.