Vertical farming systems offer innovative ways to cultivate crops in controlled environments and may help address challenges in local food security and sustainability.

Vertical farming systems are often operated using constant environmental conditions, but diurnal and developmental changes in plant physiology, as well as diurnal changes in electricity prices, call for dynamic environmental control.

Vertical farming systems are sensitive to electricity prices, but electricity consumption can be adjusted to save costs through variable light intensity without compromising plant growth.

Several end-of-production treatments for crops grown in vertical farming systems allow for optimizing product quality—including extended shelf life and increased concentrations of health-promoting metabolites—while avoiding growth penalty.

The implementation of integrated plant monitoring and modeling in cultivation systems is crucial for achieving dynamic control of climate conditions.

More focus should be given to breeding crops that are specific to controlled environments, as this will help address a bottleneck in a wider adoption of vertical farming systems.