Abstract
Climate change is driving urgent demand for resilient crop varieties capable of withstanding extreme and changing conditions. Identifying resilient varieties requires systematic plant phenotyping research under controlled conditions, where dynamic environmental impacts can be studied. Current growth cabinets (GC) provide this capability but remain limited by high costs, static environments, and scalability. These limitations pose a challenge for climate change-based phenotyping research which requires large-scale trials under a variety of dynamic climate conditions. Presented is a microclimate-controlled smart growth cabinet (MCSGC) platform, addressing these limitations through four innovations. The first is dynamic microclimate simulation through programmable environmental ‘recipes’ reproducing real climactic variability. The second is interconnected scalable multi-cabinet for parallel experiments. The third is modular hardware able to reconfigure for different plant species, remaining cost-effective at <$10,000 AUD. The fourth is automated data collection and synchronisation of environmental and phenotypic measurements for Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications. Experimental validation confirmed precise climate control, broad crop compatibility, and high-throughput data generation. Environmental control stayed within ±2 °C for 97.42% while dynamically simulating Hobart, Australia, weather. The MCSGC provides an environment suitable for diverse crops (temperature 14.6–31.04 °C, and Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) 0–1241 µmol·m−2·s−1). Multi-species cultivation validated the adaptability of the MCSGC across Cannabis sativa (544.1 mm growth over 34 days), Beta vulgaris (123.6 mm growth over 36 days), and Lactuca sativa (19-day cultivation). Without manual intervention the system generated 456 images and 164,160 sensor readings, creating datasets optimised for AI and digital twin applications. The MCSGC addresses critical limitations of existing systems, supporting advancements in plant phenotyping, crop improvement, and climate resilience research.
