Novel approach to urban farming: A case study of a solar-powered automated mushroom cultivation in a plastic box

A solar-powered, automated mushroom cultivation technique using a plastic box for urban place farming and ready-to-deploy to a disaster-hit-area is presented. The system is composed of a commercially-available plastic box where the mushrooms grow, and an automated monitor and control of air and soil humidity and air temperature for optimum mushroom growth. It is purposely designed to grow in a box to enable the easy stacking of boxes in a space-constrained urban place. The power can be sourced out from a commercial power or from the sun light using solar photovoltaic energy harvesting technology making it a standalone, ready-to-deploy food source in a disaster-hit area. Aside from organic substrate and mushroom seed, each box is equipped with low cost set of electronic components, small fan and a humidifier which facilitate the automated cultivation process. This system is not only useful for urban farming and disaster-hit-area deployment but also valuable for research purposes. It has an option to interface into a computer in a laboratory setting to precisely monitor, analyze and determine the factors that influences the optimum growth of mushroom. This approach of farming not only enabled the space-constraint farming but also improves the yield of harvest because of well-controlled growing environment. The proposed system is successfully designed, implemented and tested.