Abstract
Recent agricultural technology advancements have introduced innovative techniques like vertical farming and plant factories, offering precision agriculture. However, leafy green vegetables are dominantly grown in vertical farms with high-tech hydroponics, and fruit crops with relatively large plant sizes are neglected in vertical farming. To broaden the range of crops suitable for vertical farming, it is crucial to not only explore and develop novel varieties but also establish tailored cultivation systems. We cultivated the diminutive "Micro-Tom" tomato variety using two different hydroponic systems and assessed its productivity. After conducting four cultivation cycles and three yield trials, we verified the viability of hydroponic cultivation for mini-tomato plants. Our results suggest that enclosed vertical farms, where the external environment is strictly controlled, are more suitable for cultivating small fruit crops. These findings offer promising insights for the future application of hydroponics and vertical farming to various crops.
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Acknowledgements
We thank all members of the Kwon laboratory for comments and discussions. We thank Y.J. Shin at CultiLabs (www.cultilabs.com/) for assistance with greenhouse management. This research was funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2022R1C1C1002941 to C.-T.K. and No. 2020R1A2C1004273 to C.L.).
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Y. Lim and M. G. Seo performed the experiments and edited the manuscript. S. Lee, J.-T. An, H.-Y. Jeong and Y. Park conducted tomato yield trials. C. Lee helped perform the experiments. C.-T.K. conceived the research, performed the experiments, prepared the figures, and wrote the manuscript.
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Additional information. Supplementary data. Table S1
Detailed environmental conditions in the greenhouse. Table S2. Sunrise and sunset times in Yongin, Republic of Korea. Table S3. Yield trials of Micro-Tom in this study. Supplementary file1 (XLSX 46 kb)
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Lim, Y., Seo, MG., Lee, S. et al. Comparative yield evaluation of mini-tomato cultivar in two hydroponic systems. Hortic. Environ. Biotechnol. 65, 239–250 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13580-023-00564-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13580-023-00564-5