Vertical Aeroponics: The future of Farming?
Vertical Aeroponics: The future of Farming?
- Andrew Boardwine aboardwine@florencenews.com Reporter
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- January 17, 2018
FLORENCE, S.C. — The future of growing fruits and vegetables rests vertically, growing up, instead of horizontally, growing out.
Tim Blank, Tower Gardener founder, and Kellie Altman, of G Squared Farm, tag-teamed to provide a session detailing the future of farming through vertical aeroponics on Wednesday at the S.C. AgriBiz & Farm Expo
Blank began working as a researcher in EPCOT at Walt Disney World in Orlando in 1992 and stayed at Disney until 2005, when he decided to start Future Growing, a company that became a leader in building vertical aeroponic food farms.
“I look at the one-size-fits-all vertical system as crop insurance,” Blank said. “The idea behind all of this is to use the space in your greenhouse more efficiently. When you grow up instead of growing out, you reduce capital cost and natural resources by heating and cooling a much smaller place as well.”
Aeroponics is a planting technique in which the roots hang suspended in the air while nutrients are delivered to them in a mist.
“Aeroponics is considered to be the best way to grow,” Blank said. “We’re getting more oxygen to the roots, and you don’t have to deal with the excess grown medium. Science continues to prove that this is becoming a more efficient way to grow plants at a higher rate.”
Blank creates “tower gardens” that allow the plants to grow vertically and use the aeroponic method.
He said the foundation is targeting large and small greenhouses, farms inside and outside and farms on rooftops across the nation.
“There are a lot of rooftops around the nation,” Blank said. “We specialize in being able to transform a rooftop into a garden with our tower gardens, and the idea is that the urban farmer can grow any crop and move with the market.”
Kellie Altman, of Johnsonville, has a farm that is 3,000 square feet with 40 tower gardens and said that tower gardens became her new passion after seeing the power of the nutrients they provided.
“They are set up to help you succeed,” Altman said. “It’s a company that promotes healthy living, physically and financially. Our entire family loves it, and it’s something that has made all of us closer.”