Vertical Growing

Vertical farming is the practice of growing cannabis in vertically stacked layers or in the shape of a column. It often incorporates controlled-environment agriculture, which aims to optimize plant growth, and soilless farming techniques such as hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics.

Two Main Types of Vertical Growing

1. Stacked Vertical

The most common method of vertical farming is a stacked vertical setup—levels of plant racks with LED lights above each rack. Plants are topped and defoliated to keep them short and bud-heavy.

Growers even stack in the flower stage, despite plants being large and top-heavy.

2. True Vertical

With true vertical growing, plants grow out the side of a column, and water and nutrients drip down from the top—see these examples from ZipGrow and Tower Garden.

Within the column, a hybrid method combines nutrient film technique (NFT), where nutrient water is passed directly over the roots, and aeroponics, a soilless grow method where roots hang in the air.

This method is also referred to as “Coliseum growing”, whereas the plants are placed around the light source in a circle, and are staggered in rows by height.