The world-renowned appliance manufacturer-cum-farmer, James Dyson, is wowing the world with an innovative rotary design concept that he has successfully used to boost his year-round production of proudly British strawberries by 250%.
By Lloyd Phillips, senior journalist at African Farming and Landbouweekblad
The already 1.23 million strawberry plants in James Dyson’s gigantic 10.5ha climate-controlled and highly automated glasshouse in Britain’s Lincolnshire district could well be increased to a staggering 4.31 million plants in the foreseeable future. Even more remarkable is that this would be without having to expand the glasshouse by a single square metre.
This is all thanks to the design and functioning of the successfully tested novel hybrid vertical growing system developed and constructed from scratch by engineers from the Dyson appliance manufacturing company, and installed and tested at Dyson Farming.
The two prototype rigs are each 24m long and 5.5m high, and are mostly constructed of aluminium. They have a Ferris wheel-like or rotary design capable of holding multiple rows, each comprising numerous strawberry plants.
Dyson explains: “The rigs rotate the strawberry plants so that they get the maximum natural energy from the sun shining into the glasshouse. This is supplemented with artificial sunlight when necessary.”
A continuous irrigation and drainage system is incorporated into the hybrid vertical growing system’s design.
Powering and heating of the entire greenhouse is achieved from the renewable biogas produced by Dyson Farming’s anaerobic digesters. Organic feedstock for the digesters comes from the farming operation’s croplands. Waste digestate from the digesters is applied to the croplands as organic fertiliser.
These anaerobic digesters reportedly produce enough electricity to power the equivalent of 10 000 homes. Carbon dioxide (CO2), which helps the strawberry plants grow and produce fruit, is also piped from the digesters into the glasshouse.
Robots To The Rescue
Further mind-blowing innovations include teams of robots that use vision sensing, physical manipulation and robotic secateurs to identify and pick only the most harvest-ready strawberries. At night, other robots automatically shine ultraviolet light onto strawberry plants to prevent or kill fungal disease. Then there are robots that distribute predator insects to tackle aphid pests.
According to Dyson, the two hybrid vertical growing systems tested increased strawberry production by 250% in the equivalent glasshouse space that was previously taken up by its conventional horizontal strawberry production.
Should Dyson Farming install the vertical growing systems throughout its glasshouse, its current annual 1 250 tonnes of strawberries produced throughout the year will potentially skyrocket to approximately 4 400 tonnes per year.
“Growing things is rather like making things. I am a manufacturer and have approached farming from that point of view. I also believe Britain should grow its own food. It’s important from a food security perspective and also in terms of quality,” says Dyson.
“Our systems provide the perfect conditions to grow high-quality British strawberries under glass all year round. Even at Christmas.”
