Controlled Environment Agriculture: reading guide
Connect plants, light, air, water and roots to understand measurement and control in greenhouses and indoor farms.
This is an editorially selected reading order. Begin at step 1 or go directly to the topic you need.
- Learning guide · 17 min
CEA plant environment and light design — photosynthesis, quantity, distribution and spectrum
Connect photosynthesis, respiration, stomata, and water transport to environmental measurements. Two synthetic calculations separate carbon gain from harvest mass and vapor pressure deficit from transpiration.
- Hands-on · 4 min
VPD and DLI Lab — verify humidity and light time series
Calculate air VPD and daily light integral from synthetic CSV, testing unequal intervals, missing data and unit mistakes.
- Hands-on · 8 min
CEA climate-balance labs — conserve heat, water vapor and CO2 separately
Integrate a synthetic one-zone model in Python and verify how LED heat, outdoor exchange, ventilation, capacitance and cooling change room temperature.
- Learning guide · 15 min
CEA climate control — temperature, humidity, sensors, response and coupling
Treat room temperature and vapour mass as two states, then define interactions and test conditions for cooling, dehumidification, reheat and ventilation.
- Learning guide · 18 min
CEA sensing and image estimation — sensor placement and projected leaf area
Combine CO₂, EC, pH, DO, flow, level and pressure to separate spatial differences, instrument bias and sample transport delay. Check circulation, ventilation and water-balance residuals.
- Learning guide · 13 min
CEA nutrient dosing — tank accounting, pump calibration and state control
Compare water top-up, stock addition and drain/refill with a one-component balance, and reproduce the synthetic examples in Python.
- Learning guide · 12 min
CEA water paths and multi-tier hydraulics — NFT, DWC, drip and head balance
Compare thin-film channels, immersed roots and drip-fed substrates, separating circulation, makeup water and storage changes.
- Learning guide · 2 min
CEA recovered solution — separate sanitation, treatment and reuse boundaries
A recovered solution can match EC and still be unsuitable for roots. Separate collection, isolation, treatment, residual checks and reuse authorization.
- Learning guide · 2 min
CEA two ledgers — connect nutrient accounting and sanitation state
Keep nutrient accounting and sanitation records separate, then allow a recovered solution to become a reuse candidate only when both are complete.
- Learning guide · 3 min
CEA lot and zone traceability and isolation operations
Mixing can average chemistry, but it does not erase sanitation provenance. Preserve parent lots, shared paths and isolation scope.
- Learning guide · 2 min
CEA aquaponics — water-quality boundaries for fish, microbes and plants
Separate fish, biofilter and plant water conditions, then track nitrogen transformations, circulation and makeup water.
- Learning guide · 8 min
CEA aquaponics — loads, system capacity, isolation and recovery
Separate solids, nitrogen and phosphorus loads, allocate system capacity, and record headroom, zone isolation and recovery conditions.
- Learning guide · 4 min
CEA mushroom cultivation — fungi, substrates, environment and contamination boundaries
Unify fungal phases, substrate water activity, environmental phases and contamination boundaries in one record design.
- Learning guide · 2 min
CEA energy and economics — separate load and cost ledgers
Separate LED, HVAC, pump and fan power, then compare resource-to-yield ratios, capital cost, operating cost and labor in distinct ledgers.