Plant science research depends on controlled environments that provide precision and adaptability. From crop breeding and phytopathology to climate adaptation studies and more, researchers need reliable conditions to produce consistent results.
Traditional indoor plant growth chambers and greenhouses play a key role, but expanding research capacity with these solutions may require indoor space that your current facility does not have. Many institutions are looking for more scalable, flexible alternatives that can support a wider range of applications without major infrastructure changes. In an era of budget cuts and more competition for research dollars, EXO can be a significantly lower cost alternative to a full facility upgrade to house new plant growth chambers or rooms.
EXO Plant Growth Rooms help fill this gap. They offer a modular, research-grade option that delivers lab-quality environmental control in an outdoor-ready design. From long-term plant trials to climate simulations, EXO allows researchers to expand their work beyond traditional lab spaces without sacrificing research quality.
EXO Plant Growth Rooms are self-contained, climate-controlled environments built for outdoor installation. They provide the stable environmental conditions needed for rigorous plant science research while allowing institutions to expand their capacity in a cost-effective way without adding indoor laboratory space.
Unlike pre-assembled container farms, EXO is installed on-site following the same process as traditional plant growth chambers and rooms. This ensures that before you start your research you can rest assured that all environmental systems have followed proper testing protocols and will provide stable, repeatable conditions. These protocols include a period of tuning and continuous operation ("burn-in") to ensure that the units are performing to specification prior to site acceptance tests and final commissioning.
EXO is available in multiple configurations to serve different applications and needs, including EXO Research (A high-spec growth room, typically for universities and ag-biotech companies, ideal for plant breeding, phytopathology, and climate simulation), EXO Lab (A laboratory grade plant containment room with a preparation lobby, running water, and HEPA filtration for ultra-clean research environments), EXO Farm (Designed for vertical farming, with multi-tier setups, broad-spectrum LED lighting, and precision irrigation controls) and EXO Grow (A streamlined, cost-effective version with lab-grade precision, ideal for small-scale growers and early-stage research).
EXO builds on the foundation of EVO, Conviron's well-established modular growth chamber. By adapting EVO's proven design and applying it to a purpose-built external structure, EXO retains the same high-precision environmental control while adding the flexibility of an outdoor growth facility.
Advantages
Setting up a high-quality plant growth environment isn't just about controlling factors like light and temperature - it's about creating a space where research happens without compromise. Too often, scientists have to adapt their experiments to fit the limitations of their growth chambers instead of the other way around.
EXO was designedith features that remove those constraints, giving researchers a controlled environment that adapts to their needs.
Purpose built design
Many container-based grow rooms are retrofitted shipping containers, which come with design limitations like narrow spaces, inadequate airflow, and inconsistent insulation. EXO, on the other hand, is engineered specifically for plant and climate research, ensuring a superior growth environment with high-quality insulation to maintain stable internal conditions, optimized airflow that eliminates micro-climates and ensures even environmental conditions, modular expandability, allowing researchers to customize the space for their specific needs—whether it's tall plant or multi-tiered setups, preparation rooms, different lighting technologies, or novel features like rainfall, and header house area that provides extra work space to house electrical and control equipment and for plant and soil preparation prior to moving the plants into the growth environment.
EXO's modular design isn't one-size fits-all—it can be configured in multiple lengths, including 20 ft (7.3 m), 24 ft, 30 ft, and 40 ft—or combined into larger multi-room facilities. This allows institutions to scale up or modify research spaces as projects evolve.
Environmental control
EXO is equipped with the CMP6060 controller, offering precision programming of temperature, humidity, CO₂ levels, and lighting, automated alerts and monitoring, ensuring conditions stay within research parameters, and integration with Argus Controls, allowing centralized management of multiple growth rooms, smaller growth chambers, and greenhouses.
LED lighting
The standard lighting systems for EXO use high efficiency balanced spectrum LEDs and have a number of advantages for growers such as broad-spectrum LEDs designed to support a variety of plant species and research conditions, adjustable light intensity up to 1000 µmol/m²/s, dimmable LED options, giving researchers full control over light cycles and intensity.
Optimized airflow for optimal growth
Without proper airflow, plants in the same chamber can be exposed to different micro-climates (RH) that affect plant growth negatively through decreased transpiration and photosynthesis. EXO's optimized airflow design provides a horizontal airflow system, directing conditioned air evenly across all plant tiers, a filtered fresh air intake, to dilute CO2 concentrations, bring it back to optimal levels and ensuring a stable growing environment, and precision dehumidification, preventing mold, mildew, and plant stress caused by humidity fluctuations.
Plant science research is constantly evolving, and the tools used to support it need to evolve with it. EXO provides a solution for institutions looking to expand their research capacity in a cost-effective way without major infrastructure changes.
As more plant science departments at universities and research organizations integrate EXO as part of their controlled environment facilities, it won't replace indoor growth chambers and rooms, but it will complement them—filling gaps, increasing access to controlled environments, and making high-quality plant research more feasible in more places.
For more information: 
Conviron
www.conviron.com