About The Guest

Aja Atwood is a former natural catastrophe risk engineer and now co-founder and CEO of Trella Technologies Inc,  an agri-tech startup, focusing on modern indoor farming. 

She graduated cum laude from Northeastern University’s College of Engineering. In 2016, Aja created the patented automated low-stress plant training system, TrellaGro LST™.

Aja is a founding member of ELEVATE NE, an organization created to support the New England cannabis industry’s need for education, advocacy, and networking in a professional atmosphere. She also supports Massachusetts Recreational Consumer Council (MRCC), the Cannabis Center of Excellence (CCOE) and EforAll (Entrepreneurship for All).

Website: https://www.trella.io/ 

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/trellatech/

Trella Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/TrellaTech

About The Episode

So we’ve previously looked at vertical farming on the podcast and how important it might be in a future where more and more people are living in cities. But in today’s episode we go a little deeper into the subject and explore just how relevant automation is to this exciting technology.

I also found that most vertical farming technologies are pushing the viability of microgreens or smaller crops, but have heard very little on the possibility of having larger plants grown in a vertical farming infrastructure. So I was excited when I started looking into Trella technologies as they specifically position themselves to be able to train tall plants to grow.. Horizontally, opening up the possibility of vertical farming to all types of crops.