MICROPRECISION AGRICULTURE

Microprecision agriculture for a fully controlled plant factory is proposed in this paper. Microprecision agriculture can be attained by using plant factories to realize profitable alternative agriculture. A closed, fully controlled, plant-growing factory is far better in terms of minimizing all sorts of waste. The limit and optimum design concept has to be applied to establish an economically feasible, fully controlled, plant-growing factory. To achieve this objective, microprecision technologies have to be developed. Microprecision technologies should be involved in sensing, modeling, controlling, and collecting information for the mechatronics for plant production. Basic technologies for microprecision are already available; they are SPA (speaking plant approach to environmental control), AI (artificial intelligence: expert systems, neural networks, genetic algorithms, photosynthetic algorithms etc.), bioinstrumentation, non-invasive measurement, biomechatronics, and biorobotics. A microprecision irrigation system for plug production is an example of a microprecision technology that has actually been implemented in a plug seedling production factory.