Designing a vertical farming system does not mean "stacking crop plans." It means orchestrating lighting, water, air, nutrients, space and automation in a closed system that maximizes yield, production consistency and operating costs.
It is a balance of agronomy, engineering, and industrial logic.
Why design is crucial
The 5 initial structural decisions
The technical parameters to be defined
Lighting: how to size it correctly
Microclimate and airflow
Nutrients, water and sensors
Software, AI, and automation
Mistakes to avoid in design
Tomato+ case: integrating hardware, data and AI
Conclusions
A vertical plant is not simply an extension of a traditional hydroponic system.
It is an industrial production system where:
every error is multiplied by the number of levels, plants and cycles
every recurring inefficiency becomes OPEX
every variability ruins crop predictability
That is why design is not a phase to be improvised: it is the most important part of the project.
Every vertical plant is born from five fundamental choices:
Leaves?
Microgreens?
Basil and aromatics?
Baby leaf?
Research and experimentation?
Each product requires different EPPs, DLIs, and cycles, so the structure of the plant also changes.
They count:
usable height
lateral accessibility
safety distance from walls
presence of doors, pillars, existing facilities
More levels = more output, but also:
more heat dissipation
more fresh air consumption
more uniformity that is difficult to maintain
Manual, semi-automatic, AI-driven.
direct sales?
horeca?
LARGE-SCALE RETAIL?
university research?
corporate farming?
Each model changes CAPEX, OPEX and ROI.
Here are the engineering parameters that determine the quality of the plant:
Used to calculate how much light each plant should receive based on variety.
Essential value for calibrating power and density of LEDs.
More light = more heat = more need for air conditioning.
Calculated to ensure:
CO₂ sufficient
stable temperature
humidity within range
Stability of the nutrient solution is critical.
It all stems from:
aisle length
man access
ergonomics
operational management
Lighting is the heart of vertical farming: it is worth up to 50% of CAPEX and up to 70% of OPEX (energy).
To design well, one must consider:
Advanced systems use 6 independent channels (such as Tomato+) to stimulate growth, color, compactness and yield.
Poor uniformity implies:
uneven growth
uneven yields
wasted energy
With liquid-cooled LEDs (such as Tomato+ technology) it is possible to:
reduce power consumption by 50%
increase light density
minimize thermal stress on plants
Critical parameter to avoid photoinhibition.
Airflow must:
evenly distribute temperature and humidity
avoid dead zones
prevent condensation (and thus fungus)
support leaf transpiration
Key elements:
CO₂ between 600 and 1200 ppm
VPD optimized (0.8-1.2 kPa per leaf)
controlled air changes
laminar or semi-laminar flows
A vertical system works only if each level lives under the same conditions.
Fundamentals:
Stable EC and pH
reliable sensors (H2/H4 → safety EC; HPro → full EC+pH)
constant circulation and oxygenation
sized tanks
Proper Nutrient Film Thickness
Water is the "blood" of the system: if it is unstable, the whole system fails.
A modern vertical plant does not work without:
real-time monitoring
AI-driven image collection
comprehensive telemetry
scalable cloud systems
Dynamic growth plans
The Tomato+ model uses an AI pipeline that:
collects images by plan
analyzes real parameters
automatically corrects cycles
optimizes yield and quality
It is the natural evolution of vertical farming:
not just hardware, but software that grows.
Most common ones:
❌ Overestimating the usable height
❌ Putting too many levels without considering thermal dissipation
❌ Uneven lighting
❌ Non-ergonomic layout
❌ Lack of airflow between floors
❌ Undersized nutrient solution
❌ Insufficient automation
❌ No redundancy plan
Tomato+ structured the entire home and professional vertical system with:
This enables:
zero soil
zero pesticides
extremely low water consumption
total control
constant productivity
replicability in any environment
A well-designed vertical plant is not a light rack, but an industrial system in which every parameter is orchestrated.
Those who design it correctly achieve:
extremely high yields
predictability of cycles
consistent quality
costs under control
scalability
Those who get the design wrong ... multiply the errors for every level, every plant, and every cycle of the year.
Thank you for reading this article. Keep following us to discover new content on hydroponics, vertical farming, and smart agriculture.
Tomato+ Team