The World's Largest Vertical Indoor Farm Is About To Open

Last year we announced Newark's plans to open the world's largest indoor vertical urban farm. Now, almost a year later, construction of the 70,000-square-foot "lettuce factory" created by AeroFarms is nearing completion. This big, green growing machine churns out crops "while using 95% less water than field farmed-food and with yields 75 times higher per square foot annually," according to Web Urbanist.

The current record-holder for the world's largest vertical farm is in Japan; the Newark farm's output will be comparable to it.

The farm will need no sunlight or soil and will use nutrients, water, and LED lights to nurture growth 365 days of the year, regardless of weather or darkness.

"We use aeroponics to mist the roots of our greens with nutrients, water, and oxygen," explains AeroFarms. "Our aeroponic system is a closed loop system, using 95% less water than field farming, 40% less than hydroponics, and zero pesticides."

Thus far, the team plans to grow 22 different crops per year and with the unique LED technologies, will be able to control size, shape, texture, color, flavor and nutrition of the vegetables grown in the facility, according to The Daily Mail.