Sustainability | Dyson Farming
Dyson engineers boost strawberry yields by 250% in technology breakthrough
“Growing things is rather like making things – I am a manufacturer, and I have approached farming from that point of view. I also believe Britain should grow its own food – it’s important from a food security perspective and also in terms of quality.
“I have always been disappointed by the low-quality, tasteless fruit that is imported from overseas with all the associated food miles. Dyson Farming is focused on producing the very best, tastiest, most nutritious produce we can, right here in Britain. Since 2021, we have been using the heat and CO2 from our green-energy producing anaerobic digesters to provide the perfect conditions to grow high-quality British strawberries under glass all year round – even at Christmas.
“We always want to improve the efficiency of what we do, and our novel Hybrid Vertical Growing System, has shown that it can increase yields by two and a half times. It rotates the strawberry plants so that they get the maximum natural energy from the sun, which is then topped up with artificial light when necessary. It is an example of what is possible through the application of ingenuity and technology in agriculture.” – James Dyson
Dyson Farming’s 26-acre glasshouse in Lincolnshire is already home to 1,225,000 strawberry plants, which are grown all year round, to produce over 1,250 tonnes of high-quality British strawberries.
Dyson is always looking to maximise efficiency of the farms and the quality of their produce. The most recent development in the glasshouse is Dyson’s Hybrid Vertical Growing System, the trial of which has just finished. It exceeded all expectations, boosting yields by 250% whilst optimising the quality of the fruit.
Rather than arranging the strawberries in simple rows, Dyson’s system arranges them on vast, 5.5 meter-high Ferris wheel-like structures which rotate the strawberry plants, making use of the full height of the glasshouse, dramatically increasing the number of strawberry plants which can be planted in the same area.
Two aluminium rigs – each bigger than two double-decker buses placed end-to-end – rotate the trays of strawberry plants to ensure they get optimal exposure to natural light while also supplementing them with LED light when daylight levels are lower in the winter months. A continuous and novel irrigation and drainage system ensures root health is never compromised.
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About the high-tech glasshouse
The glasshouse is home to teams of advanced robots which select and pick only the ripest fruit using vision sensing, physical manipulation and robotic secateurs. Other robots glide on rails next to the plants, shining UV light on them at night to prevent mould growth and ensure the health of the crop. And, instead of using pesticides and insecticides, robots distribute insect predators to tackle aphids through the year.
The glasshouse is adjacent to one of Dyson Farming’s anaerobic digesters which enables the year-round strawberry production. Crops from the surrounding fields are fed into the digester and broken down by mico-organisms creating gas which drives a generator providing two outputs.
- Electricity: which powers the equivalent of 10,000 homes
- Heat: which is piped into the glasshouse, along with CO2, to provide optimal growing conditions for strawberries all year round
The waste digestate goes back onto the land as organic fertiliser to increase crop yields.
“We designed and built every aspect of the Hybrid Vertical Growing System ourselves – it has been a painstaking labour of love over the past 12 months. We’ve built the biggest machines in Dyson’s history and filled them with 6,000 strawberry plants. Slowly rotating, with a highly sophisticated and novel drainage system, they have been extremely happy plants producing wonderfully sweet fruit.”
Robert Kyle, Dyson Engineer
“The trial shows how the yields of delicious, high-quality fruit grown vertically under glass in the right conditions can be significantly increased. This need not only apply to strawberries. There is much more we can do and the precision that Dyson engineers bring to their testing and improvement is unlike anything I have ever seen in farming before.”
Daniel Cross, from Dyson Farming
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James Dyson on why he founded Dyson Farming: “I worked on Norfolk farms as a boy, and though it is not exactly in my blood, it has become something of a passion over time. Today, I am fortunate to have been able to invest £140m into Dyson Farming - beyond the cost of the land – to improve it. We want to farm well. It’s important that we not only produce high-quality food for the UK, but that we do it in harmony with the environment, be it improving the soil, encouraging pollinators with our wildflower field margins or putting measures in place to increase Red Listed bird species on our land.”
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Press contacts
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Dyson Farming Press Office
Email: Pippa.Burgess@dyson.com or Communications@dysonfarming.com
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Dyson Farming
- Website: https://www.dysonfarming.com/
- YouTube: Behind the Scenes of Dyson Farming with James Dyson
- Instagram: @dysonfarming
