Agriculture has strong seasonal, regional and cyclical characteristics. In the evolution of the natural environment for millions of years, biological resources have evolved into different types and ecotypes, caused characteristics in both biodiversity and ecosystem diversification. For this reason, researchers have been studying the biological characteristics of biological resources, especially the characteristics of resources and environmental demands, in order to create a suitable growth environment for crops to the greatest extent. It is also in this process, as people gradually master the law of biological demands, it is beneficial to promote the change of agricultural production mode and the improvement of production efficiency. Throughout the course of agricultural development, it has completed the transformation process from slash and burn cultivation to field open land production, simple protected farm field cultivation to facility controlled agriculture, and is from partially environmentally controlled facility gardening to fully controllable artificial light plant factory. This process is closely related to human cognitive progress on crops and technological innovation.

The factorization and intellectualization of agricultural production system and the complete control of production factors are always the development goals of facility agriculture, and the development course of open farm field, cold frames, Gothic Arch Style Greenhouse, plastic greenhouse, passive solar greenhouse, glass greenhouse, multispan greenhouse, plant factory and vertical agriculture has gradually realized this goal.

What is a plant factory

Plant factory is an efficient facility agricultural system that realizes year round crop production through high precision environmental control within the facility. It is a new production mode that is automatically controlled by computer for environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, light, CO2 concentration and nutrient solution in the crop growth process, and is not restricted by natural conditions or rarely by natural conditions. Plant factories are internationally recognized as the highest stage of development in facility agriculture. Plant factories can be divided into artificial light plant factories and sunlight plant factories according to the source of light. The former refers to a plant factory that uses artificial light source and nutrient solution cultivation technology under completely closed and controllable environmental conditions, and carries out year round plant production in an environment that is not affected by external climate conditions. The latter refers to plant factories that mainly use sunlight or short term artificial light and nutrient solution cultivation technology for year round production of plants in a semi closed greenhouse environment.

What are the advantages of plant factories

Plant Factories have important uses in the production of off season vegetables, flowers, fruits and edible fungi, and have unique uses in the cultivation of seedlings, tissue culture seedlings, field crops (rice, tobacco, etc.) and the propagation and production of endangered plants (Chinese herbal medicine). Vegetable factory, seedling factory, plant tissue culture factory and other forms have already appeared in China.

Plant factories have incomparable advantages over open land agricultural production, which are as follows:

① It is not affected by external climate conditions, can carry out planned year round production or production according to order, the production cycle is controllable, and the output is stable; ② Can implement multi layer three dimensional cultivation, high yield per unit area, high utilization rate of land and space resources; ③ High degree of mechanization and automation, low labor intensity, comfortable working environment; ④ High degree of cleanliness, no pests and diseases, pesticides free, product safety and pollution free, high quality; ⑤ can be produced on non cultivated land (such as sand and hydrochloric acid land), can also be built around the city or urban area, local production and sales, reduce carbon footprint; Plant factory environmental factors control precision is high, plant growth is fast, not only shorten the growth cycle, and ensure the consistency of plant growth, agricultural products nutritional quality can be regulated; ⑦ Suitable for LED semiconductor light source application, greatly improve the efficiency of resource and energy utilization; The scale of plant factories can be large or small, suitable for a variety of places, with the characteristics of "everywhere"; ⑨ Suitable for the adoption of water and fertilizer integration technology and equipment; ⑩ Can meet the polar, outer space, islands and other special environment use.

In the global context, the development of plant factories has its objective reasons and inevitable trends. The specific reasons are as follows:

① Climate change leads to frequent occurrence of extreme weather events and more frequent climate disasters, which reduces the stability of production performance of open land farmland systems; ② The global population continues to grow in this century, and the demand for food and agricultural products is increasing year by year. ③ Agricultural resources (land, water and fertilizer, electricity, etc.) and labor shortage, low utilization rate, we must improve per unit yield and production efficiency; ④ Farmland environmental pollution is serious (pesticides, heavy metals, antibiotics, etc.), and food safety problems are becoming increasingly prominent; ⑤ The product of coupling driven by scientific and technological development. Plant factory is the coupling product of hydroponic technology, LED lighting technology, sensor and intelligent control technology; ⑥ The demand for development of modern agriculture in China. China's facility agriculture has been hovering in the vicious circle of low input, low output and low benefit, the unit yield is not high, it is urgent to use engineering means to reform, implement the development strategy of "environment instead of resources"; ⑦High value added crops year round production needs. Only under the condition of high precision of production factors can the yield, quality and growth cycle of crops be improved, and the production efficiency of facility horticulture be increased.

Jiayan (Beijing) Environmental Technology Co., Ltd. is committed to the technology R&D and service of "plant growth controlled environment", adhering to the concept of "Independent Innovation, Pursuit of Excellence", and providing reliable artificial environment simulation and regulation technology. Over the years, the company has continuously explored the application field of artificial environment, and provides overall solutions especially in the aspects of plant growth, tissue culture, low temperature storage of germplasm, plant lighting and other special artificial environment.