Stories, research, and engineering insights from across our facilities and projects.
Phytotrons replicate any climate on earth inside a single chamber - engineered temperature, humidity, and light recipes that let researchers compress entire growing seasons into weeks. By isolating each environmental variable, scientists can pinpoint exactly how crops respond to drought, heat, or shifting light, accelerating the breeding of resilient, high-yield varieties that strengthen global food security.
Glazing, ventilation strategy, and thermal screens make or break a greenhouse's running costs. We break down the five decisions that move the needle most - from selecting the right covering material and orientation to layering automated climate screens and recovering waste heat. Get these right and growers routinely shave 30–40% off annual energy bills without sacrificing yield.
We crunch real unit economics - energy, labour, and yield per square metre - to see where indoor farms now break even. Falling LED costs and smarter automation have pushed leafy-greens operations into the black in several markets, while energy-intensive crops still struggle. The verdict: profitability is no longer a fantasy, but it lives or dies on crop selection and electricity pricing.
Real-time sensing turns guesswork into precision. Networks of CO₂, moisture, and canopy-temperature sensors now feed live data into climate controllers, letting facilities respond to plant stress before it's visible to the eye. We look at the data layer powering the next generation of research facilities - and how machine learning is beginning to close the loop entirely.
Climate volatility, water scarcity, and population growth are rewriting how the world grows food. We map the forces pushing production indoors and closer to cities - resilient supply chains, water recycling, and controlled-environment agriculture moving from niche to necessity. Here's where the industry is heading and what it means for growers planning their next decade.
From poly-tunnels to fully glazed Venlo structures, the right greenhouse depends as much on your climate and crop as on budget. We walk through how covering material, frame type, and ventilation should flex with your region's light levels and temperature swings - a practical guide to matching structure to goals so you don't over- or under-build.
Plants don't just need light - they need the right wavelengths at the right moments. We explore how programmable LED spectra steer everything from leaf size to flowering time, and how growers are building per-crop "light recipes" that boost quality while trimming energy use. The result is a new layer of control that was impossible under the sun alone.
By controlling light, temperature, and photoperiod, speed-breeding chambers let researchers harvest several crop generations a year instead of one. We look at how this technique is accelerating the development of disease-resistant and climate-adapted varieties, and why controlled-environment facilities are now central to the global race for food security.
Closed-loop hydroponic and aeroponic systems recirculate nearly every drop, capturing transpired moisture and reusing nutrient solution. We break down how these designs cut freshwater use by up to 90% compared with field farming - a decisive advantage in water-stressed regions, and a model for sustainable production as climate pressure intensifies.
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