STC and CHAP

The Advanced Glasshouse Facility (AGF) at STC is a fully controlled, flexible and customisable glasshouse, which enables bespoke commercially representative testing of plant protection products and integrated pest management programmes in three separate compartments, each of which can be further sub-divided into four sections. This set-up benefits growers, food producers and researchers by providing optimum flexibility for reliable trial conditions in the testing of their products. This flexibility can be critically important, for example, in the assessment of biopesticide efficacy.

The AGF also includes a suite of 60 custom-designed 200-litre deep-water hydroponic units, which allow for both plant protection programmes and aquatic ecotoxicology studies to be conducted with appropriate replication.

The Vertical Farming Development Centre (VFDC) enables growers, food producers and researchers to test how the economics of LED vertical farming are affected by different technologies in a controlled environment and is a complementary facility to STC’s own LED4Crops glasshouse.

The VFDC consists of two identical growth rooms each with full climate control. Each growth room contains fixed LED lighting with 112 m² of LED-lit cropping area over four tiers. Crops are grown using a fully recirculating hydroponics system on 2m² rolling benches with all inputs and outputs accurately monitored. The system has been designed to achieve a high-care environment making it possible to grow clean crops, potentially removing the need to wash harvested produce, reducing costs for growers.

Currently, a major question inhibiting investment in vertical farming technology is the economics of crop production. The VFDC has been designed to make it possible to quantify the economics for growing a wide range of low-level crops. The two separate but identical compartments, mean it is possible for researchers and commercial growers to compare the impact of different climate control strategies and photoperiods on energy efficiency and crop yields, leading to improved energy efficiency, sustainability, yields and economics.

STC’s LED4Crops and the CHAP-funded VFDC together provide the perfect location to test and develop new technologies aimed at improving all aspects of vertical farms.

STC is also home to CHAP’s field scale precision equipment.

This machinery enables both farmers and researchers to trial modern strip-tillage approaches, which could provide benefits for both crop and soil health, helping to pave the way to a more sustainable food system.

CHAP’s precision agriculture unit is comprised of several items of machinery, which  can be utilised independently or in conjunction, according to project need. When coupled with STC’s RTK base station, all of the  farm operations using the equipment can be completed with very high and repeatable levels of accuracy, supporting field-scale trials with precision application of new plant protection and fertilizer products.

This precision machinery is available for hire.

The expertise in STC’s laboratory is underpinned by some fundamental CHAP equipment – namely our high powered microscopes and hand-held weather proof molecular diagnostic equipment. The STC laboratory can also be used in educational training sessions with the CHAP microscope camera equipment connecting to large screens for stimulating visual effect.