Titta Kotilainen invited to speak at CEA 4.0 by Netled

Day two of the CEA 4.0 virtual conference on Controlled Environment Agriculture will take place on 4th June.

We asked Titta Kotilainen, Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Institute Finland, to speak about some of the vertical farming research projects currently ongoing in Finland.

Titta is a researcher specialized in plant photobiology and lighting conditions in controlled environments. She has been studying and working with plants and light for more than 13 years, both in academia and industry.

Titta’s talk at CEA 4.0 will cover the following projects:

• The “Vertical Pilot” joint project of the Natural Resources Institute Finland and the town of Kajaani aims to take advantage of the vertical production environment built in the premises of Kainuu Vocational College to develop year-round, energy-efficient and economically profitable horticultural production in Northern Finland.
• Plants currently grown in plant factories are typically small plants, like lettuce and herbs. As of yet, the market does not offer a solution or technology which would enable the cost-effective cultivation of climbing and/or tall production plants – such as cucumbers or beans – in a plant factory and in multiple layers. Natural Resources Institute Finland has developed a concept “Cucumber factory” for the vertical farming of tall production plants.
• The “Food without fields” project run by Natural Resources Institute Finland and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland develops and studies new food production technologies which can help Finland achieve its carbon-neutrality targets. “Food without fields” refers to food production solutions that do not depend on agricultural land. Possible alternatives include cellular agriculture – or using microbes and plant cells to produce feed and food – and new approaches, including vertical farming, for the cultivation of vegetables and protein crops.

More details about the above research projects can be found here >