Advances and Trends in Development of Plant Factories

The plant factory is a facility that aids the steady production of high-quality vegetables all year round by artificially controlling the cultivation environment (e.g., light, temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, and culture solution), allowing growers to plan production. By controlling the internal environment, plant factories can produce vegetables about two to four times faster than by typical outdoor cultivation. In addition, as multiple cultivation shelves (a multi-shelf system) are used, the mass production of vegetables in a small space is facilitated. In Japan more than 211 Plant Factories currently are cultivating lettuce, herbs, tomatoes, strawberries, and so on. The Plant Factory also has recently enabled the cultivation of some functional vegetables, such as lettuces with low potassium, making use of an environmental control system, a feature of the factory. Actions for large-scale production and entry into the market for such products are already being implemented. Furthermore, a demonstration project for establishing an industry cluster of large Plant Factories is now being considered.

This research topic provide an up-to-date account of knowledge on plant factory with a focus on:
Intelligent Systems in Plant Factories,
Environment Optimization of Plant Factories,
Plant Factory Heating,
Performance of Plant Factories,
Irrigation Systems in Plant Factories,
Plant Physiology & Technology,
Robotics in Plant Factory,
Trends in Plant Factories,
Current Situation &Future Prospects of Plant Factories,
Controlled Environment for Plant Factory,
Automatic Plant Growth Measurement System,
High Quality Vegetable Production, and
High Speed Composting System.

We warmly welcome all types of articles including original research, methods, hypotheses, opinions and reviews that provide new insight into these topics.