Welcome
Welcome to OptimIA University lecture series 'Basic Knowledge for Indoor Farming'!
All our lectures are free for your access in order to assist your learning and training in mastering indoor farming science and technologies.
As a basic course, the general learning objectives are:
- Being familiar with indoor farming system components
- Understanding basics of hydroponic culture management, and
- Being able to start planning own indoor farming business.
1.10
History of Indoor Farming
This lecture reviews the early history of indoor plant agriculture and associated technology development.
1.20
Indoor Farming: Introduction and Industry Status
This lecture reviews indoor farming, describing types, major advantages and challenges compared with other types of production systems, and key considerations for planning indoor farming.
2.10
HVAC System I - System Overview
This lecture overviews heating, ventilation, and cooling systems (HVAC).
2.20
HVAC System II – Cooling and Humidity Management
This lecture overviews the HVAC (heating, ventilation, and cooling systems) core system for indoor farms - cooling and humidity management.
2.30
Selecting an LED Fixture for Indoor Plant Production
This lecture provides basic information for selecting an LED fixture for indoor plant production.
3.10
NFT – Nutrient Film Technique
This lecture describes NFT (nutrient film technique), a hydroponic nutrient delivery system widely used in North America.
3.20
DWC/SWC – Deep/Shallow Water Culture
This lecture describes DWC (deep water culture), a hydroponic nutrient delivery system widely used in indoor farms.
3.30
Substrate Culture
This lecture reviews nutrient delivery system and types of substrates for soilless substrate culture.
3.40
Recirculation
This lecture describes recirculation of nutrient solution as a critical technique to make hydroponic crop production more sustainable.
4.10
Temperature
This lecture reviews how temperature affects crops when grown in indoor vertical farms.
4.20
Light Intensity and Photoperiod
This lecture reviews general plant responses to light intensity and photoperiod, as well as its product (intensity x photoperiod) daily light integral (DLI).
4.30
UV and Blue Light
This lecture reviews general plant responses to light qualities, specifically ultra-violet (UV) light and blue light.
4.40
CO2
The first lecture reviews the basics of plant responses to carbon dioxide (CO2), an important factor affecting plants through plant photosynthesis. The second lecture is about applications of CO2 in indoor farms.
4.50
Humidity (VPD)
This lecture provides a brief overview on humidity focusing specifically on vapor pressure deficit (VPD).
4.60
Air Circulation
This lecture reviews air circulation as a factor affecting plant photosynthesis and transpiration (thus plant growth). Understanding of the effect of air current speed on boundary layer resistance also helps to understand the importance of air circulation in a controlled environment agriculture (CEA) production system.
4.70
Hydroponic Nutrient Management Basics
This lecture reviews hydroponic systems and nutrient management basics, including common management issues and solutions.
4.80
Plant Nutrition
This lecture provides a brief overview on how indoor growing environments affect plant growth and nutrition, by understanding the significance of maintaining a balance between plant growth and nutrient availability to minimize the risk of nutrient deficiencies, toxicities, and associated symptoms.
5.10
Tipburn (Basics)
This lecture overviews the basics of tipburn and its management under controlled environment.
5.20
Intumescence
This lecture introduces you to one of the unique environmental disorders seen for tomato plants so that you can learn the causal factor and possible mitigation methodology to grow healthy tomato plants under indoor vertical farms.
5.30
VOC Phytotoxicity
This lecture reviews the environmental plant disorder created by air quality: voltile organic compound (VOC) phytotoxicity.
6.10
Lettuce
This lecture provides a brief overview of the indoor production of lettuce crops.
6.20
Baby Greens
This lecture provides a brief overview of the indoor production of baby greens.
6.30
Microgreens
This lecture provides a brief overview of the indoor production of microgreens under sole-source lighting.
7.10
Planning Production Efficiency
This lecture reviews the importance of defining a production schedule in order to achieve production efficiency.
7.20
Value Proposition of Leafy Greens Grown in Indoor Farms
The first lecture reviews strategic principles for value proposition (Part 1). The second lecture describes consumer attitudes and willingness to pay for the indoor farm grown leafy greens (Part 2) .
7.30
CapEx and ROI
This lecture describes the differences and interactions between capital expenditures (CapEx) and operating expenditures (OpEX). It introduces the use of return on interest (ROI) as a power measure of farm profitability that can give insight into farm management decisions that boost ROI particularly in its DuPont analysis format.
7.40
OPEX: Fixed and Variable Costs
This lecture reviews operating costs and how they can be used to define price and management strategies.
7.50
Labor Efficiency
This lecture reviews the results of the OptimIA Economics Team's survey conducted in collaboration with AU Lab, Canada on the indexes of labor efficiency and labor requirements in controlled environment agriculture (CEA).