Growing higher

長得更高

New ways to make vertical farming stack up

讓“垂直農(nóng)業(yè)”疊起來的新方法

Cultivating fresh produce in an artificial environment is getting cheaper

在人工環(huán)境中培育新鮮農(nóng)產(chǎn)品變得越來越便宜

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Aug 29th 2019 | INVERGOWRIE

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FROM THE outside it looks like a tall, metal-clad barn. But step in, through a large airlock designed to keep out the bugs, and a kaleidoscopic scene emerges. A central aisle is flanked by two pairs of towers. Each tower is stacked with a dozen or so trays on which are growing strawberries, kale, red lettuce and coriander. And each tray is bathed in vibrant light of different colours, mostly hues of blue and magenta. Douglas Elder, who is in charge of this artificial Eden, taps some instructions into an app on his mobile phone and, with a short whirr of machinery, a tray of lush, green basil slides out for his inspection.

從外面看，它看起來像一個高大的金屬包裹的谷倉。但是，通過一個設(shè)計(jì)用來阻擋蟲子的大氣閘，一個萬花筒似的場景出現(xiàn)了。中央通道兩側(cè)有兩對塔樓。每座塔上都堆放著十幾個托盤，托盤上種著草莓、甘藍(lán)、紅生菜和香菜。每個托盤都沐浴在充滿生機(jī)五彩斑斕的燈光下，大多數(shù)色調(diào)為藍(lán)色和洋紅色。負(fù)責(zé)這個人造伊甸園的道格拉斯·埃爾德(Douglas Elder)把一些指令輸入他手機(jī)上的一個應(yīng)用程序，機(jī)器發(fā)出短暫的嗡嗡聲，一盤郁郁蔥蔥的綠色羅勒（一種蔬菜）滑了出來，供他檢查。

詞匯

Kaleidoscopic/千變?nèi)f化的；萬花筒似的

Kale/羽衣甘藍(lán)

Lettuce/生菜；萵苣

Coriander/芫荽，香菜

Magenta/洋紅色的；品紅色的

Vibrant/充滿生機(jī)的，生氣勃勃的

Whirr/ ?呼呼聲；心煩

Basil/羅勒屬植物；紫蘇

Mr Elder is product manager for Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS), a “vertical farming” company based at Invergowrie, near Dundee, in Scotland. Each of the nine-metre-high towers in the demonstration unit that he runs occupies barely 40 square metres. But by stacking the trays one on top of another an individual tower provides up to 350 square metres of growing area. Using his phone again, Mr Elder changes the colours and brightness of the 1,000 light-emitting diodes (LEDs) strung out above each tray. The app can also control the temperature, humidity and ventilation, and the hydroponic system that supplies the plants, growing on various non-soil substrates, with water and nutrients. Armed with his trusty phone, Mr Elder says he can run the farm almost single-handedly.

埃爾德先生是智能生長解決方案公司(IGS)的產(chǎn)品經(jīng)理，這是一家位于蘇格蘭鄧迪附近因弗高利的“垂直農(nóng)業(yè)”公司。在他管理的示范單位中，9米高的塔樓每座僅占40平方米。但是通過將托盤一個疊一個，一個獨(dú)立的塔可以提供350平方米的種植面積。埃爾德先生再次使用手機(jī)，改變了每個托盤上方1000個發(fā)光二極管(led)的顏色和亮度。該應(yīng)用還可以控制溫度、濕度和通風(fēng)，以及為生長在各種非土壤基質(zhì)上的植物提供水分和養(yǎng)分的水培系統(tǒng)。埃爾德先生說，有了可靠的手機(jī)，他幾乎可以獨(dú)自經(jīng)營農(nóng)場。

詞匯

Invergowrie/

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Plant power

（該詞最主要釋義是工廠供電，這里大概理解為植物能耗研究吧）

Vertical farming of this sort is not, of itself, a new idea. The term goes back to 1915, though it took a century for the first commercial vertical farms to be built. But the business is now taking off. SoftBank, a Japanese firm, Google’s former boss Eric Schmidt and Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos have between them ploughed more than $200m into Plenty, a vertical-farming company based in San Francisco. And in June Ocado, a British online grocery, splashed out ￡17m ($21.3m) on vertical-farming businesses to grow fresh produce within its automated distribution depots.

這種垂直農(nóng)業(yè)本身并不是一個新概念。這個詞可以追溯到1915年，盡管第一個商業(yè)垂直農(nóng)場花了一個世紀(jì)才建成。但是這項(xiàng)業(yè)務(wù)現(xiàn)在正在快速發(fā)展。日本軟銀，谷歌的前老板埃里克·施密特和亞馬遜的創(chuàng)始人杰夫·貝佐斯已經(jīng)向位于舊金山的垂直農(nóng)業(yè)公司Plenty投資了2億多美元。今年6月，英國在線雜貨公司Ocado花費(fèi)1700萬英鎊(2130萬美元)在垂直農(nóng)業(yè)上，在其自動化配送倉庫中種植新鮮農(nóng)產(chǎn)品。

詞匯

splash out/揮霍

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The interest of investors is growing just as technology promises to turn vertical-farming operations into efficient “plant factories”. The high-tech LEDs in IGS’s demonstration unit are optimised so that nary a photon is wasted. The hydroponics, and the recycling that supports them, mean the only water lost from the system is that which ends up as part of one of the plants themselves. And towers mean the system is modular, and so can be scaled up. Most of the systems which IGS hopes to start delivering to customers early next year will consist of ten or more towers.

正當(dāng)技術(shù)有望將垂直農(nóng)業(yè)轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)楦咝У摹爸参锕S”時，投資者的興趣正在增長。IGS演示單元中的高科技led燈經(jīng)過優(yōu)化，因此不會浪費(fèi)任何光子。水培法，以及支持水培的循環(huán)利用，意味著唯一從系統(tǒng)中流失的水，最終成為植物本身的一部分。塔意味著系統(tǒng)是模塊化的，因此可以擴(kuò)大規(guī)模。IGS希望明年初開始交付給客戶的大部分系統(tǒng)將由10座或更多的發(fā)射塔組成。

詞匯

Nary/連……也沒有的

Photon/光子；輻射量子

Modular/模塊化的；模數(shù)的

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Some people, however, remain sceptical about how much vertical farms have to offer that good-old-fashioned greenhouses do not. Vertical farms are certainly more compact—a bonus in places like cities where land is expensive. Since sales of fresh produce to the urban masses are often touted as one of vertical farming’s biggest opportunities, that is important. But a greenhouse gets its light, and much of its heat, free, courtesy of the sun. And modern greenhouses can also use solar-powered supplementary LED lighting to extend their growing seasons and hydroponic systems to save water, says Viraji Puri, co-founder of Gotham Greens, an urban-farming company that operates greenhouses on the roofs of buildings in New York and Chicago. As for food miles, they could not get any shorter for Gotham Greens’s rooftop greenhouse in Brooklyn, which supplies the Whole Foods Market located downstairs.

然而，有些人仍然懷疑垂直農(nóng)場能提供多少傳統(tǒng)溫室無法提供的東西。垂直農(nóng)場當(dāng)然更緊湊——在土地價格昂貴的城市，這是一個額外的好處。由于向城市大眾銷售新鮮農(nóng)產(chǎn)品經(jīng)常被吹捧為垂直農(nóng)業(yè)的最大機(jī)遇之一，這一點(diǎn)很重要。但是溫室的光線和大部分熱量都來自太陽，是免費(fèi)的。紐約和芝加哥的城市農(nóng)業(yè)公司Gotham Greens的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人普里(Viraji Puri)說，現(xiàn)代溫室還可以使用太陽能補(bǔ)充LED照明來延長生長季節(jié)，并使用水培系統(tǒng)來節(jié)水。至于食品里程，沒有哪個溫室能夠比位于布魯克林哥譚鎮(zhèn)格林一家的屋頂溫室提供更便捷的服務(wù)，這個溫室能夠?yàn)闃窍碌娜吵泄┙o食品。

詞匯

Tout/兜售

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The biggest drawback of vertical farming is the high cost of the electricity required to run the large number of LEDS. This has meant that production has been commercially viable for high-value, perishable produce only, such as salad leaves and herbs. That, nevertheless, is a market not to be sniffed at. But for a broader range of produce, it can prove too expensive. In 2014 Louis Albright, an emeritus professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell University in America, calculated that a loaf of bread made from wheat grown in a vertical farm would be priced at about $23.

垂直農(nóng)業(yè)最大的缺點(diǎn)是運(yùn)行大量LED燈所需的高成本電力。這意味著生產(chǎn)高價值、易腐爛的產(chǎn)品在商業(yè)上是可行的，比如沙拉葉子和草藥。然而，這是一個不容小覷的市場。但對于更廣泛的農(nóng)產(chǎn)品來說，它可能過于昂貴。2014年，美國康奈爾大學(xué)(Cornell University)生物與環(huán)境工程榮譽(yù)退休教授路易斯·奧爾布賴特(Louis Albright)計(jì)算出，用垂直農(nóng)場種植的小麥制成的面包，售價約為23美元。

詞匯

Viable/可行的；能養(yǎng)活的

Perishable/易腐爛的，易變質(zhì)的

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Blue is the colour

要的就是藍(lán)色

One way of saving electricity is to use LEDs that generate only the colours that plants require, instead of the full spectrum of plain white light. Plants are green because their leaves contain chlorophyll, a pigment that reflects the green light in the middle of the spectrum while absorbing and using for photosynthesis the blue and red wavelengths at either end of it.

一種節(jié)約電能的方法是使用只產(chǎn)生植物所需顏色的LED燈，而不是產(chǎn)生全光譜的普通白光。植物之所以是綠色的，是因?yàn)樗鼈兊娜~子含有葉綠素。葉綠素是一種色素，可以反射光譜中間的綠光，同時吸收光譜兩端的藍(lán)色和紅色波長，并將其用于光合作用。

詞匯

Spectrum/ ?光譜；頻譜

Chlorophyll/葉綠素

Pigment/色素；顏料

Photosynthesis/ ?光合作用

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The vertical farm at Invergowrie takes this idea further. It uses LEDs that are highly tuneable. Although the lights produce mostly blue and red wavelengths, researchers now know that other colours play an important role at various stages of a plant’s development, says David Farquhar, IGS’s chief executive. A dose of green at an appropriate moment produces a higher yield. A timely spot of infrared can improve the quality of foliage. The lights can also produce various blue/red mixes.

因弗高里的垂直農(nóng)場將這一理念進(jìn)一步發(fā)揚(yáng)。它使用了高度可調(diào)的LED燈。IGS的首席執(zhí)行官大衛(wèi)·法夸爾說，盡管這些光主要產(chǎn)生藍(lán)色和紅色波長，但研究人員現(xiàn)在知道，在植物發(fā)育的不同階段，其他顏色發(fā)揮著重要作用。在適當(dāng)?shù)臅r候給予一定的綠光會產(chǎn)生較高的產(chǎn)量。適時的紅外光斑可以提高葉片的品質(zhì)。這種燈還可以創(chuàng)造各種藍(lán)色/紅色的混合光照。

詞匯

tuneable/可協(xié)調(diào)的

foliage /植物；葉子

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To operate these LEDs efficiently, the company has developed a low-voltage power-distribution system. This, says Mr Farquhar, can cut energy costs to about half of those incurred by existing vertical farms. As a result, all four towers can produce 15-25 tonnes a year of herbs, salad leaves, fruit and vegetables. This, the company claims, is between two and three times more than a conventional greenhouse with an equivalent but horizontal growing area, and equipped with supplementary lighting and heating, could manage. And the system can grow all this produce at a similar cost-per-kilogram.

為了有效地運(yùn)行這些LED燈，該公司開發(fā)了一個低壓配電系統(tǒng)。法夸爾表示，這可以將現(xiàn)有垂直農(nóng)場的能源成本削減一半左右。因此，這四個塔每年可以生產(chǎn)15-25噸的草藥、沙拉葉、水果和蔬菜。該公司聲稱，這是傳統(tǒng)溫室的兩到三倍，而傳統(tǒng)溫室的面積與之相當(dāng)，但他們可以做到水平生長，并配備了補(bǔ)充照明和供暖。而且該系統(tǒng)可以以每公斤相似的成本種植所有這些農(nóng)產(chǎn)品。

詞匯

Incur/招致；遭受

Supplementary/補(bǔ)充的；追加的

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One of the jobs of the Invergowrie unit is to develop lighting regimes tailored to individual crops. Another is to develop algorithms to control, in an equally bespoke way, the climatic conditions preferred by different crops. The idea is to design crop-specific weather “recipes” in order to boost the yield and quality of whatever varieties are grown in the vertical farm. All the processes involved are engineered to be efficient. Irrigation, for instance, relies on captured rainwater. This is cleaned and recycled, but only 5% gets used up by each harvest—and most of that as the water-content in the plants themselves. Ventilation is also a closed loop, harvesting surplus heat from the LEDs while managing humidity and oxygen levels.

Invergowrie單位的工作之一是開發(fā)適合于不同作物的照明系統(tǒng)。另一個是開發(fā)算法，以同樣定制的方式控制不同作物偏好的氣候條件。其理念是設(shè)計(jì)特定作物的天氣“配方”，以提高垂直農(nóng)場種植的任何品種的產(chǎn)量和質(zhì)量。所有涉及的過程都被設(shè)計(jì)成高效的。例如，灌溉依賴于收集的雨水。這是清潔和回收，但只有5%的使用，每一次收獲——其中大部分作為水的含量在植物本身。通風(fēng)也是一個閉環(huán)，從LED照明中獲取多余的熱量，同時控制濕度和氧氣水平。

詞匯

Tailor/專門制作，訂做；調(diào)整

Bespoke/定做的，定制的

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By reducing running costs, the system should make it profitable to grow a wider variety of produce vertically. The firm has already succeeded with some root vegetables, such as radishes and baby turnips. Bulk field crops, such as wheat and rice, may never make sense for a vertical farm, and larger, heavier vegetables would be tricky to raise. This means full-grown potatoes are probably off the menu, at least with existing technology.

通過降低運(yùn)營成本，該系統(tǒng)應(yīng)該使垂直種植更多品種的農(nóng)產(chǎn)品有利可圖。該公司已經(jīng)成功地推出了一些根莖類蔬菜，如紅蘿卜和小白蘿卜。大田作物，如小麥和大米，可能永遠(yuǎn)不適合垂直農(nóng)場，更大、更重的蔬菜將很難種植。這意味著完全成熟的土豆可能不在菜單上，至少在現(xiàn)有技術(shù)下是這樣。

詞匯

Radish/蘿卜，小蘿卜（尤指酒紅色的）

Turnip/白蘿卜

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Seed potatoes, though, are a good candidate, says Colin Campbell, head of the James Hutton Institute, a plant-science research centre backed by the Scottish government. It is based next door to IGS and works with the company. Many fields around the world, Dr Campbell observes, are suffering a growing burden of pests and disease, such as potato-cyst nematode. In the controlled environment of a vertical farm, from which both pests and diseases can be excluded, seed potatoes could be propagated more efficiently than in the big, bad outdoor world. This would give them a head start when they were planted out in fields.

然而，由蘇格蘭政府支持的植物科學(xué)研究中心【James Hutton Institute】的負(fù)責(zé)人Colin Campbell說，土豆種子是一個很好的選擇。該研究中心位于IGS的隔壁，與IGS合作?？藏悹柌┦坑^察到，世界上的許多領(lǐng)域正遭受著害蟲和疾病帶來的的日益沉重的負(fù)擔(dān)，比如馬鈴薯囊腫線蟲。在垂直農(nóng)場的受控環(huán)境中，害蟲和疾病都可以被排除在外，種薯可以比在大而惡劣的室外環(huán)境中更有效地繁殖。這將使他們在種植到野外時有一個良好的開端。

詞匯

Nematode/線蟲，線蟲類

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The institute’s researchers are also looking at plant varieties that might do particularly well indoors, including old varieties passed over in the search for crops which can withstand the rigours of intensive farming systems. By dipping into the institute’s gene banks, Dr Campbell thinks it may find some long-forgotten fruits and vegetables that would thrive in the security of a vertical farm.

該研究所的研究人員還在研究可能在室內(nèi)表現(xiàn)特別好的植物品種，包括在尋找能夠承受集約化農(nóng)業(yè)系統(tǒng)的苛刻條件的作物過程中被淘汰的老品種。坎貝爾博士認(rèn)為，通過研究該研究所的基因庫，他們可能會發(fā)現(xiàn)一些被遺忘已久的水果和蔬菜，它們會在垂直農(nóng)場的安全環(huán)境中茁壯成長。

詞匯

Rigour/嚴(yán)格；嚴(yán)厲；苛刻；精確

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All this could go down well with foodies, and unlock new and forgotten flavours. Shoppers might even find some exotic varieties growing in supermarket aisles. In Berlin a company called Infarm provides remotely controlled shelved growing cabinets for shops, warehouses and restaurants. Herbs and salad leaves, including exotics such as Genovese basil and Peruvian mint, are resupplied with seedlings from the company’s nursery as the mature plants are picked.

所有這些都可能受到美食家們的歡迎，并解鎖新的或是被遺忘的味道。購物者甚至可能在超市的過道里發(fā)現(xiàn)一些生長在國外的品種。在柏林，一家名為Infarm的公司為商店、倉庫和餐館提供遠(yuǎn)程控制的生長柜。在采摘成熟的植物時，公司會從苗圃里重新提供藥草和沙拉葉子，包括奇異植物，如吉諾維斯羅勒和秘魯薄荷。

詞匯

go down well with/受……歡迎

Aisle/通道，走道；側(cè)廊

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Vertical farming then will not feed the world, but it will help provide more fresh produce to more people. It may even be that, as vertical-farming systems improve further, miniature versions will be designed for people to put in their kitchens—thus proving that there is nothing new under either the sun or the LED. Such things used once to be called window boxes.

屆時，垂直農(nóng)業(yè)或許無法養(yǎng)活世界，但它將幫助更多的人獲得更多的新鮮農(nóng)產(chǎn)品。甚至有可能，隨著垂直農(nóng)業(yè)系統(tǒng)的進(jìn)一步完善，微型農(nóng)業(yè)系統(tǒng)將被設(shè)計(jì)成供人們放進(jìn)廚房的樣子，從而證明這無論是在陽光下還是LED光照下都并非新鮮事。而這樣的東西曾經(jīng)被稱為窗口框。

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