I’ve searched a couple of organizations’ sites with keywords that I feel that should return results relevant to my work, with mixed results. I have initially used each site’s own search engine since they have appeared to be well organized and established organizations, with history of scientific publication and large databases of research reports. I may consider searching the same sites with google and google scholar later.

I searched SYKE with keyword “data” and found a reference to Dataa tarjolla blog post from article Sateliittidatan jakelupalvelu FinHub avattiin that in turn pointed to Avointieto and Metatietopalvelu. I should probably return to Avointieto and Metatietopalvelu a bit later.

Next I tried with keyword “sensor” that returned Maatalouden kuormituksen vähentäminen that provided some insight how agriculture can cause stress to enviroment and local ecosystem, but not much relevant to my work. Keyword “internet” yielded a reference to KIVIKI project that focuses on how circular economy could boost competitiveness and growth to green economy. Again, not my research focus but since circular and green economies are growing trends and often connected to IoT technologies I thought it would be worth a mention. If you’re uncertain what the term “green economy” means and what practical implicatons it may have, this article helps: Vihreä talous - käsitteen jäsennys ja seuraukset eri toimijoille. The green economy’s implementation was researched more throughly in Syke’s project Biotalous ja vihreä tekniikka vihreän kiertotalouden perustoina (PEER GE) that was a part of PEER (Partnership for European Environmental Research)’s project Implementing the Green Economy. The report should provide an interesting read and it’s available as PDF here.

PEER was a new addition to my list of organizations to check out. Unfortunately for me, apparently their research focus is not in IoT technologies. At least none of their Flagsip projects appeared to relate to IoT tech and the site’s search engine didn’t return anything on search terms like “big data” or “internet of things”, and very little with “sensors”. At least I found a past event on precision agriculture, that may provide some leads: Precision agriculture: an opportunity for EU farmers. Well, one can hope.

I’ve wanted to re-check MTK’s site for a while now, just in case if there would be news or events that I haven’t noticed before. While nothing new in particular caught my eye, I browsed to the “agriculture” and “horticultural production” -category, where I came across a link to Puutarhaliitto’s pages. I decided to take stock of Puutarhaliitto since I had moment. Their publications were mostly books not relevant to my research –Can you see a pattern in here? Should I just give up and run home to google scholar?– but I picked the name of their greenhouse expert, engineer Jukka Tuominen and just googled ‘Jukka Tuominen puutarhaliitto’. I added that “puutarhaliitto” since his name appears to be so common that the search results with only his name were all over the place. I found a short article Energiatehokkuutta kasvihuonetuotantoon that described the use case for a container-size plant factory and some of it’s challenges. While nothing new to me, the article referred to two companies that I’m going to look into a bit closer:

1. Netled has developed water-cooled led lighting system in their vertical farming concept that can be combined to heat recovery system. I hope to get a closer look at one of those when I’ll get to visit Robbes Lilla Tädgård at Lapinjärvi.

2. Exsilio is developing a container based plant factory solution EkoFARMER in Salo. The project’s own pages are at ekofarmer.fi.

From Puutarhaliitto’s page I browsed to Kauppapuutarhaliitto’s pages where I found the basics of greenhouse plant production in Finland neatly wrapped up: Kasvihuonetuotanto Suomessa. Check it if you need an overview.

Next up on my list was LUKE but before I cranked up the site’s search engine, I checked –just a peek, no harm in looking, just a little bit… you know that I’m about to go down the rabbit hole and not coming back to my neatly planned and organized search. For a day or two, at least. But I checked what I could find in Research Focus: Innovative Food System. In the See also part of the page there was a link to Mushrooms and berries grown in forests of the future that while not in my reseach focus, was an interesting read. Perhaps some extraordinarily expensive mushrooms and berries could be cultivated in plant factories too?

“Such special mushrooms include chaga mushrooms and lingzhi mushrooms. Chaga mushroom tea, for example, may costs up to 960 euros per kilogramme.”

Well, that price point just made me sit up and take notice.

From Luke’s Current news section I also found a news article Drone project prepares ground for new business with Tekes funding that referred me to the DroneKnowledge project that has received Challenge Finland funding from Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation. Also, I learned that VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is “developing a spectral camera which would be closer to the prices of consumer products” according to VTT’s researcher Heikki Saari. I think there’s a fair chance that I will use this article and look further in to DroneKnowledge project.

But I still got a couple of things from Luke I haven’t shared with you. Well, more than just a couple. Actually, quite a lot more. A whole bunch, really. Sheesh, they’ve been busy!

There’s this nice report about LED-lightning in greenhouse use: LED-valaisimet kasvihuoneviljelyssä. While not specifically and in itself an IoT tech, a nice report on LEDs themselves. I have also found a couple of interesting companies in LED growlight business like Netled I already mentioned and Valoya that makes wide spectrum LED grow lights. Browsing through Valoya’s pages I noticed a section “Valoya is a member of:” that looked interesting. There was International Society for Horticultural Science that we already know, but also some awesome new organizations –for me– like UK Controlled Environment Users’ Group and Association for Vertical Farming that shared a nice article from Hortidaily: Does vertical farming make sense? on their FB page. Here’s some thoughts from Martin Veenstra of Certhon.

“…Veenstra stressed that vertical farming creates a lot of possibilities. But what about the feasibility? With the right technology and knowledge, basically anything is possible. Growing bell peppers without daylight. Possible. Growing lettuce in a shipping container. Possible. The options are limitless. But does it make sense? Does it make any sense (and more important: money) when your competitor is growing them next door in a traditional greenhouse with daylight at 50% of the cost? “The purpose of the type of cultivation should be determined. When vertical farming allows you to grow a fresher, local product that you can market with a premium it makes sense, go for it. The goal is then to grow local and a vertical farm allows you to achieve this goal. Growing in a vertical farm simply because it is vertical may never be the goal.”

That appears to be yet another company for me to check out. No rest for the whatevs. :D But the article points that there’s another important point to be made: vertical and urban farming may be cool and trendy AF, but it’s business and not everyone makes it. Like in the case of FarmedHere.

T