Inside Vertical Harvest’s Next-Generation Indoor Farm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCJ93MjBqsk

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We're here in Westbrook, Maine, at our brand-new Vertical Harvest facility. We are an indoor hydroponic growing facility. We grow lettuces, microgreens, petite greens, and even some herbs. It's about a 200,000 sq ft facility when you take into account all the levels of racking. So, this is all proven technology you've seen all around the world, but this is really the first time it's been formatted into a vertical building.

My name's Chris Eckerson. I've been with Vertical Harvest now for the last 4 years. I'm our facilities manager here. I've been on site every day for the last 2 years learning how this whole system works and operates. Everything is taken into account here, you know, it's a completely custom build. The entire building itself revolves around these growing racks. It's a very, very efficient system in that we don't actually really heat the building.

The heat is actually mostly produced from the lighting itself. We're able to capture that heat from the lights and actually heat other parts of our building that way. We grow on a 100% compostable material. It's kind of like a felt mat almost. The seeds go right on top and then it it nestles right into the mat itself. So, your tray is pushed onto the lowest row here. It's going to push that entire row to the back. That last tray is going to get picked up by an elevator and then placed on one of these shelves here.

In between every two racks here, we have an air baffle wall that distributes the air over the plants. That's also how we deliver the CO2 to the plants as well. Nutrients are all delivered through these irrigation hoses. These trays actually sit at an angle when they're in the rack themselves. So, as these turn on, it's going to hit that tray, go all the way across the tray, and then get collected in the gutter system on the backside.

Tray is going to slide all the way back. It's going to live in the same place its entire growing cycle until it's ready to be harvested, at which point it's going to push this tray onto this elevator, then drop it onto this lower conveyor downstairs to be harvested.