Traditional industrial shelving can be used in vertical operations. These systems are typically tended to from ground level and manually attended. They reduce your nursery footprint by stacking multiple levels of plants in a compact space. Typically lights are installed on or around the shelves. This method may mean that you nurture smaller plants (in the cloning phase or vegetative cycle) before they flower and grow too tall for tighter shelf spaces. For other operations, taller vertical shelf spacing can be used to build a storage system that allows all phases of growth. This choice depends on your facility and process.
Lighting strategies: Most any modern lighting technology interfaces easily with trough shelves, making it simple to light your plants from any point along any shelf in the system.
Trough-style shelves provide efficient drainage. With an engineered slant and durable 2" trough front edge built into shelves, you can designate where drainage runs for better moisture control. Troughs have open ends so you can add PVC drains or tubes wherever needed. This allows you to manage nutrient and water flow easier and more effectively than typical shelving.
Wire decks are frequently used in vertical applications. They do not control drainage, but they don't retain water, which passes through to lower levels. This is a viable moisture control method for many facilities. Shelving sizes: Standard post heights: 6', 8', 10' and 12'. High rise posts are available for larger systems that require access from multilevel systems or order picker vehicles.
These systems eliminate aisles for very high-density operations, but still allow easy access to your crop. They work by allowing you to move shelving aisles around, so that an entire bank of shelving can be serviced by a single aisle, using half (or less) of the space required by conventional shelving rows. You can also build various types of shelves into the system, meaning you have control of tilt, decks, drainage, etc.
For more information on cultivation shelving systems, contact us today.