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Aramark Gears Up For 2019 Back-To-School Season On College Campuses
Freight Farms - East Carolina University's Freight Farm supplies the dining hall with organic produce, grown in a shipping container behind a residence hall. The shipping container provides ideal conditions for seeds to germinate, grow and be ready for harvest in eight weeks
8/28/2019
BACK TO SCHOOL: Aramark is welcoming back three million higher education students to campus, by introducing a new wave of offerings customized to the ever-changing needs of Gen Zers, including new breakfast and dessert menu items added to True Balance, Aramark's allergen solutions station.
PHILADELPHIA -- Aramark, a foodservice and facilities partner of more than 400 colleges and universities across the U.S., is ready to welcome back three million higher education students to campus by introducing a new wave of offerings customized to the ever-changing needs of Gen Zers.
"Every year, our higher education team members elevate the student experience with custom campus solutions tailored for them," said Jeff Gilliam, president of Aramark's Higher Education business.
Aramark's team of more than 450 higher education chefs develop menus using flavors and food trends from around the world, in-depth research and healthy, fresh and authentic ingredients, to satisfy and expand students' taste buds.
Some highlights of new menu items include:
Sushi Cones -- A new concept that puts a fun spin on a student favorite. Made to order, sushi cones are easy to eat and completely customizable, from the vegetables, to the protein of choice.
Kimchi Quesadilla -- Inspired by a concept that helped lead the popularity of gourmet food trucks, this quesadilla features spicy kimchi, baby spinach, queso fresco and Kogi Salsa Roja.
Beet Hummus -- Alternative hummus options have risen in popularity in the U.S. Beet hummus packs many nutrients and brightens recipes with a subtle, earthy, mildly sweet and smooth flavor.
Cooking Up Meal Kits
Aramark research found that 58% of undergraduates would be very likely or likely to use a meal kit at school, so the company is partnering with Home Chef, the second largest U.S.-based meal kit brand, to offer meal kits as a component of a meal plan this fall. Debuting on 25 campuses this September, the new plan provides meals on campus and meal kits delivered directly to students' doorstep, providing a new solution for those who enjoy or want to learn to cook.
Expanding Allergy Solutions
This academic year, students can expect breakfast and dessert menu items added to True Balance, Aramark's allergen solutions station.
Aramark's culinary team developed six new recipes utilizing products from Enjoy Life Foods, which are entirely gluten free and exclude nuts, dairy and soy. All Enjoy Life foods are free from 14 allergens and are made with 100%, all natural, non-GMO ingredients. Featured recipes include various types of muffins, banana pancakes, chocolate brownies and chocolate chip cookies.
Growing Campus Gardens
Campus gardens are sprouting up across the country, giving students the chance to eat local and see how produce is grown, first-hand. Through innovative technologies, Aramark is helping students embrace a plant-forward lifestyle.
Aeroponic Gardens - At the University of California, Irvine, 30 aeroponic towers grow over 1,320 bunches of vegetables. Harvested every three weeks, the bundles of produce go directly into the dining hall, where they are incorporated into the menu and enjoyed by UCI students. The towers also supply vegetables and herbs for the on-campus food pantry and resource center.
The University of Florida uses two aeroponic tower gardens to grow leafy greens and herbs that are donated to the on-campus food pantry that assists food insecure UF staff, faculty and students who utilize the pantry.
By utilizing aeroponic gardens, campuses are using less water, growing more product and eliminating the use of pesticides.
Freight Farms - East Carolina University's Freight Farm supplies the dining hall with organic produce, grown in a shipping container behind a residence hall. The shipping container provides ideal conditions for seeds to germinate, grow and be ready for harvest in eight weeks.
Use Of Artificial Intelligence
Aramark has expanded its use of artificial intelligence (AI) to college campuses through a partnership with Mashgin, a Palo-Alto, CA-based technology company, that creates express self-checkout kiosks that use computer vision to scan multiple items at once without barcodes.
This technology provides a frictionless customer experience with faster checkout times and shorter lines for the convenience time-pressed students and staff want. Students also can purchase grab-and-go choices without sacrificing a fulfilling meal.
Rolling Food Delivery Onto Campus
Aramark recently acquired Good Uncle , an innovative, app-based on-demand food delivery service that brings freshly prepared, restaurant quality meals to conveniently located pick-up points around college campuses. The addition of this concierge service to the Aramark portfolio furthers the company's commitment to advancing innovation through culinary-and technology-driven solutions that better serve customers and clients.
Good Uncle, launched in 2016, utilizes centralized production and a fleet of specially equipped vehicles to deliver meals to the most popular spots on and off campus. Its world-class culinary team, led by a Michelin-rated chef, crafts a diverse menu of healthy and indulgent items that rotates frequently to keep the experience enticing.
UK Tech Pioneer Conjures New Future For Farming Out of Thin Air
Change is in the air for agriculture and indoor farms developer LettUs Grow is breaking new ground with a system that produces more plants more quickly by growing their roots only in a nutrient-rich mis
Change is in the air for agriculture and indoor farms developer LettUs Grow is breaking new ground with a system that produces more plants more quickly by growing their roots only in a nutrient-rich mist. A pioneer within the field known as aeroponics, this air-based method uses 95 percent less water than conventional farming.
By MAISHA FROST
August 12, 2019
LettUs Grow Director Aims to ‘Inspire’ Food Production Generation
It can also involve lower carbon emissions compared to other soil-free systems such as hydroponics where plants are dipped enriched water. LettUs’s patent-pending technology introduces more simplicity and consistency to aeroponics while maintaining yields, explains managing director Charlie Guy. “We have developed a very efficient way of growing plants, from leafy vegetables to soft fruits, in completely controlled environments.
“Our aeroponic systems are easier to use than others on the market where water is pushed through nozzles to create an aerosol that can get clogged.
“Ours just needs a wipe down and is modular so can work with operations of all sizes, from a single layer to an entire controlled environment farm unit.
“Ostara, our software management can automate, control and collect data from the operation. That integrated licensed approach makes aeroponics accessible to anyone enabling farmers around the world to benefit from this game-changing technology.”
The clock is ticking and on LettUs’s side – by 2050 it is estimated the world must increase food production by 70 per cent to feed more than nine billion people.
Managing director Charlie Guy (Image: Jack Wiseall)
The Bristol-based firm was founded in 2015 by Guy, and fellow graduates of the city’s university Ben Crowther and Jack Farmer.
Their mission to tackle food waste and supply chain inefficiency “has always been to reduce the environmental impact of fresh produce by allowing anyone to grow food near its point of consumption,” says Guy.
“The past decade has been defined by the environmental crisis, but now food can be grown in the most unstable of climates. Any building can be converted and millions of transport miles saved.”
Two big tech changes paved the way for LettUs: cheaper, more efficient LED lighting and cloud computing enabling the harvesting of big data.
The company’s technology can match lighting to roots to optimise growth and precise delivery of the nutrients tailored to plant variety and stage of life.
The plants don't need as much water (Image: Picasa)
Systems are assembled in Bristol and pay back for growers estimated to be under five years. Overseas interest from the Middle East, Europe, Africa and US is accelerating.
More than £1million of funding, both in grants from government-backed Innovate UK and private investment, has gone into LettUs which sees potential further applications for its technology contributing to the likes of reforestation programmes.
The Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Hub, geared to maximise the potential of next-generation entrepreneurs, also played a crucial role in helping LettUs commercialise its innovation.
Crowther took its SME Leaders Programme, a grant-aided, coaching and mentoring support scheme for early stage engineering and technology firms with high growth potential and “that has been invaluable in accelerating our development”, says Guy.
After starting with laboratory projects such as research into plant-based proteins and pharmaceuticals, LettUs’s sales are increasing to growers and the business has plans to raise more investment this year.
The team, now 15, “is very plant-focused but diverse,” says Guy. “Not just engineers but ex-farmers and plant scientists. All our kit is made by growers for growers.”
LettUs Grow is breaking new ground with a system that produces more plants (Image: Jack Wiseal Photography)
Farming Smart in Northern Manitoba
Food accessibility has long been an issue in more remote regions of Canada. This northern initiative puts new indoor farming technology to good use in the OCN community.
Food accessibility has long been an issue in more remote regions of Canada. This northern initiative puts new indoor farming technology to good use in the OCN community.
July 02, 2019
Written by Q&A with Joan Niquanicappo and Stephanie Cook of OCN Smart Farm
Since the first seeds were planted in 2016, members say the OCN Smart Farm has successfully grown over 70 different varieties of vegetables, flowers and fruits.
For the Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN) in northern Manitoba, new smart farming technology is improving their access to fresh, healthy food in a big way.
Presented at the Canadian Greenhouse Conference (CGC) last fall, operations manager Stephanie Cook and general manager Joan Niquanicappo of the OCN have been heading a vertical farming pilot project that offers affordable, fresh produce to those living in remote regions.
According to the presentation, a study by the Opaskwayak Health Authority showed that close to 50 per cent of the OCN community suffered from diabetes – an alarmingly high rate. In partnering with the University of Manitoba, they hoped to conduct a health research study to explore whether functional produce from the smart farm, along with the right educational resources, could help lead to change in the community – all while ensuring that the farm could be a viable business in its own right.
Partnering with technical specialists from Korea Agriculture System & Technology (KAST), the first seeds were planted on the smart farm in February of 2016. Over 70 different varieties of plants have been successfully grown since.
Following their presentation at the CGC, Greenhouse Canada magazine followed up with Cook and Niquanicappo on their smart farming journey.
Q: What prompted you to begin a vertical farming operation?
Niquanicappo: The concept of a year-round produce growing facility was intriguing. For the OCN to initiate a project of this scope, the ability to produce fresh vegetables – and functional vegetables at that – this was exciting. It was astounding to find that vegetables could help combat chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and its complications. A hydroponic system, utilizing recyclable water, no soil, no pesticides/chemicals, independent of weather, and all using smart technology – the opportunities were endless.
Q: What problems did you enounter during the initial set-up?
Niquanicappo: Beside the initial stage fright, the main problem was to have all the equipment CSA approved. There were growing pains in that short period of time from December 2015 to March 2016, but we were able to overcome them. The logistics of preparing the equipment to Canadian standards was time-consuming, and the cost of utilizing tradespeople was very high. The training of local people to assemble, maintain and operate the smart farm was not a problem, but it was still very new, so there was a bit of uncertainty on our part. We have since successfully grown 70 different types of vegetables, flowers and fruits.
Q: How do you control or prevent diseases and insect pests?
Cook: We follow strict sanitation procedures, including Hazard And Critical Control Points (HACCP) developed by KAST and adapted to our Smart Farm for caring for the plants personally and procedurally. We ensure that our Smart Farm is sanitized regularly.
As our Smart Farm operates in our community hall, whenever an event is held, we wait two days before entering the farm. Our pest control consists of natural remedies such as lemon juice with water or vinegar and water to help with arachnids, arthropods, dipterans, aphids and other pests.
Q: How do pricing and freshness compare to imported products?
Cook: When we started selling our produce, it was being distributed to community members who had been coming back for the freshness, so the price remained constant throughout the year. Unlike imported vegetables, our produce is grown locally for freshness, and available all year round.
Q: Since the farm’s inception, how has the community responded?
Cook: The community members cannot wait for each harvest. They welcome the produce with curiosity, both to newly introduced varieties and to common produce such as lettuce and herbs.
Q: What’s next for the smart farm?
Niquanicappo: We will be using the smart farm to combat diabetes. We are going to conduct a research study with community members living with diabetes or pre-existing diabetic conditions. We also want to explore ways in which we can make our operations sustainable through the sale of the smart farm equipment, service and maintenance packages, as well as supply sales.
From members of the OCN Smart Farm: On November 9, 2018, the OCN lost a close and valued colleague, Isaac Jung. Jung was instrumental in forming the relationship between the OCN and KAST, which resulted in the creation of the OCN Smart Farm. Isaac will always be remembered as a true partner of the OCN. He will be missed.
Editor’s note: Responses were edited for length and clarity.
Micro Farm, Macro Impact
March 25, 2019
Brooke Bilyj | Photography by Erin Elliott, except where noted
Micro Farms in Nappanee, Indiana, Hopes to Revolutionize Food Production With its Patented Hydroponic System.
From left to right: Nick Graber, Steve Kiefer and Dion Graber
Nestled in the heartland of northern Indiana’s Amish country sits a shimmering glass greenhouse where fresh produce is grown, 365 days a year, without any pesticides or herbicides. Although the facility occupies a mere quarter of an acre, the owners of Micro Farms hope to revolutionize global food production with their innovations.
“Our big-picture goal for Micro Farms is to develop technology and growing systems to provide wholesome food to people globally,” says Loren Graber, who established the hydroponic greenhouse about five years ago.
“There are too many people who go to bed hungry,” adds Dion Graber, Loren’s son and head grower. “With all the technology and resources available, we should be able to feed them.”
Building on a long farming history, the Graber family has been producing food on this property for generations. Back in the ’80s, before Dion was born, Loren ran the family’s corn, soybean and dairy farm in Nappanee, Indiana. One day, he jokingly mentioned to the farm’s agronomist, Steve Kiefer, that he would start a greenhouse operation someday.
But then, soon after Dion was born, milk prices plummeted — forcing Loren to find work in another field. At the time, he didn’t realize that his new job in vinyl fencing would inspire the innovation to bring his greenhouse to life.
“Since he was in the vinyl business and he has PVC connections, vertical farming was right up his alley,” Dion says. “He’s always been an inventor at heart, and he has multiple patents. He just loves thinking outside the box and trying to come up with new things that are more efficient.”
Leveraging his inventive curiosity, his knowledge of vinyl and his drive to make traditional agriculture more efficient, Loren designed and patented his own vertical hydroponic/aeroponic tubes. He asked Kiefer to team up with him again, and they established Micro Farms in late 2013 with the dream of farming differently. Dion jumped onboard as head grower, and several years later, his younger brother Nick joined the family business to execute their father’s dream.
Lettuce growing at Micro Farms
“Vertical” integration
Loren considered using traditional, single-layer hydroponic systems that used floating rafts — deep water culture (DWC) — or the nutrient film technique (NFT), where nutrient-rich water circulates past the bare roots of plants in enclosed channels. But these horizontal layouts required too much space — pointing him toward vertical farming instead.
“You get so much more product per square foot when you grow vertically,” Dion says. “We have 320 tubes in a 4,000-square-foot area, and we can fit 46,823 plants in that 4,000 square feet. That’s roughly 10 plants per square foot.”
Micro Farms’ “Verti Tubes” are 12 feet tall and eight inches in diameter. Loren’s patented design features removable growing cups and trays that pop out of the tube for cleaner, easier harvesting. Prongs in each cup hold a foam cube in place to support the plant’s roots, and a small groove in the bottom of each cup channels water down as it trickles through the tube.
“The biggest thing that separates us when it comes to our Verti Tubes is the removable cup,” Dion says. “Most of them are molded in and you can’t take them out, so our design is better for cleaning purposes. It’s easier to harvest your plants, because if the roots are too long, they’ll get caught when you try to pull them out.”
The foam cubes can be removed with the roots still intact, allowing Micro Farms to harvest and sell living lettuce with a shelf-life of at least two weeks — leaving minimal cleanup behind.
Micro Farms’ Verti Tube Home Growing System
Finding the right mix
The Grabers broke ground in fall 2012, and then a team of builders from Rough Brothers constructed the Venlo greenhouse in 2013. The glass structure contains a 3,000-square-foot head house for seed-starting, a 4,000-square-foot space filled with Verti Tubes, and another 4,000-square-foot space for vertical vine crops.
Dion didn’t have any experience with hydroponics, so he and Kiefer attended the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center at the University of Arizona for a “quick crash course” that packed “six months’ worth of college courses into five days, and then another four months in two days,” he says. “That’s where my knowledge started, but at least 80 percent of my growing knowledge is just hands-on.”
When Dion started growing, he experimented with 23 varieties of leafy greens that he seeded weekly. Through trials, he whittled that collection down to 10 varieties, based on what grew and sold best.
The front half of the greenhouse is dedicated to leafy greens like butterhead and oakleaf lettuce, kale and pak choi grown in Graber’s hydroponic/aeroponic Verti Tubes. In the back half, vine crops like tomatoes, red bell peppers and snacker cucumbers are strung up toward the ceiling from hydroponic Bato buckets below — which are filled with recycled glass Growstone that can be rinsed and reused.
Dion and Nick continue to explore new varieties together — switching up greens in the summer to include basil and other heat-loving plants. They’re even trying strawberries in the Verti Tubes.
“We’re constantly experimenting,” Dion says.
Micro Farms grows tomatoes in addition to its Verti Tube-grown lettuce.Photo: Brooke Bilyj
Watering the natural way
In addition to Loren’s innovation, the design of the greenhouse also drives efficiency at Micro Farms.
For example, each peak of the Venlo greenhouse roof has a vent on each side. “Whichever way the wind blows, the opposite side opens, so you don’t have a dramatic change in temperature,” Dion explains. “And then every valley has a gutter where we collect rainwater, which is stored in a 25,000-gallon tank under the floor of the headhouse.”
The roof of the warehouse next door also collects rainwater to supplement the operation. They have access to well water, if needed, but they rarely need to tap into that supply.
“The plants just respond better to rainwater,” says Dion, who also uses an O2 Grow system to “supercharge” the water with dissolved oxygen. “We’re trying to imitate exactly what a plant would get out in the ground, but with no soil.”
To that end, Kiefer formulated a mix of granular fertilizers mined from the ground — including Epsom salt, potash, potassium nitrate, monopotassium phosphate and calcium nitrate — that’s added to the water.
Building on a long farming history, the Graber family has been producing food in Indiana for generations.Photo: Brooke Bilyj
Bugging out for pest control
To keep greenhouse insects in check, Dion and Kiefer rely on beneficial bugs to provide biological pest control at Micro Farms.
“We try to keep our population up, so when pests come, we’re ready for them,” Dion says. “Pests seem to multiply quicker than your beneficial bugs, so we’re constantly ordering them.”
Dion regularly releases parasitic wasps to control pesky aphids. Meanwhile, small sachets of swirski mites hang from the plants, inviting the tiny predators to go after the eggs of thrips that can threaten crops. Beneficial insects are released once or twice a month, negating the need for sprays.
“One thing that separates us is that we do not spray any pesticides or herbicides on our plants,” Dion says. “We don’t even have to rinse our produce after harvesting, because nothing was sprayed on it.”
Ronda Kuhns, greenhouse worker at Micro Farms, harvests lettuce from its Verti Tubes.
Harvesting fresh for market
Using scissor lifts to access crops all along the 12-foot-tall tubes, Micro Farms employees harvest produce daily. While some is sold fresh to local restaurants and retail customers, Micro Farms also sells produce through an online farmers market called Market Wagon.
Founded by a fellow former dairy farmer, the online platform allows customers throughout the state to order locally grown or handmade products from various vendors, who get to set their prices and availability weekly. Then, orders are either delivered directly to consumers’ doorsteps or to local pickup points.
There are too many people who go to bed hungry. With all the technology and resources available, we should be able to feed them. — Dion Graber
Every Thursday morning, Dion drives a truckload of produce to the Market Wagon hub in Indianapolis, two hours south of Micro Farms. On the way home, he swings by another hub in LaPorte, an hour west. At each hub, he distributes orders into customers’ bags, which are delivered after every vendor drops off their goods.
Market Wagon extends Micro Farms’ reach across the northern half of Indiana. But word travels fast in the small, rural town of Nappanee — and local consumers started asking how they could get fresh hydroponic produce, too. So last November, Micro Farms began selling to the public on Saturday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon.
“At 9, you’ll see half a dozen buggies and a dozen cars in the parking lot,” Dion says. “Local people have responded very well to our products.”
Photo: Brooke Bilyj
Looking to the future
The Graber family is eager to share their hydroponic innovations with other growers. The first phase of this long-term plan is their home growing unit, which is slated to hit the retail market later this year.
A smaller version of their greenhouse Verti Tubes, the home hydroponic units, are mounted on a rolling cart that can be wheeled outside. Or, the unit can sit in a kitchen, using an optional LED strip and rotating function to provide sufficient light inside. The home unit features Loren’s patented removable cups and trays, allowing consumers to hydroponically grow 24 plants with minimal mess or maintenance.
Looking even further into the future, the Grabers’ dream of improving food production around the world by providing greenhouse supplies, resources and knowledge to communities in underserved nations like Haiti and Africa, where they’ve been involved in mission work.
“We want to teach other people how to grow. Ultimately, our big goal is to feed the hungry by educating them and setting them up for success,” Dion says. “Because our tubes maximize product per square foot, we think it could definitely make a difference.”
Brooke is a freelance writer based in Cleveland.
Vertical farms Irrigation Hydroponics Aeroponics Cucumber Lettuce
Kale Bok choy Basil Pepper
Vertical Farming For Cannabis Gets Trial Run in Langley
Leo Benne, chief growing officer of Zenabis, with the converted shipping container that will become a testbed for a vertical cannabis farm. (Matthew Claxton/Langley Advance Times)
Grower Zenabis Will Start With Industrial Hemp And May Move to
Commercial Marijuana
Jun. 6, 2019
Zenabis, which merged with longtime Langley greenhouse firm Bevo last year, has received a hemp cultivation license from Health Canada, with growing to take place in Langley, Pitt Meadows, and Aldergrove facilities.
“We expect the seed to come in this week,” said Leo Benne, chief growing officer for Zenabis.
A small portion of that seed will be planted not in one of the greenhouses facilities, but in a converted shipping container, as a test on whether cannabis can be vertically farmed.
Bevo has already helped develop a vertical farming system through CubicFarms, a Pitt Meadows-based spin off.
Vertical farming involves growing large amounts of crops on small amounts of space, indoors, and usually without any soil.
Plants are reared in racks, stacked as high as the building or container can accommodate, and grown either hydroponically or aeroponically.
Energy efficient LED lights allow the plants to grow 24 hours, seven days a week, in any weather.
In theory, the cost of the equipment and intensive rearing is offset by the ability to grow non-stop and to place the growing site much closer to the end-consumer. Rather than trucking lettuce from California or Mexico, it could be grown just a few miles outside of Canadian cities and shipped just a few kilometres.
The hemp vertical farm is just a test at this point, said Benne. A single converted shipping crate has been hauled into one of the Zenabis greenhouses in Langley and will be ready for its test run at about the same time as 20 acres of industrial hemp is planted in the three facilities, from Langley to Pitt Meadows.
While most crops planted in vertical farms are extremely low-growing, allowing for many racks close together, cannabis is usually a tall-growing crop.
Benne said that a combination of the plants chosen and growing practices is expected to keep the plants shorter for the vertical farm project.
If the project goes well, vertical farming facilities could be used for growing commercial marijuana, said Zenabis CEO Andrew Grieve.
The industrial hemp isn’t being grown for commercial marijuana sales. Instead, the hemp will be processed into CBD oil, fibre, or other derivatives. The project is separate from Zenabis’s plans for growing commercial cannabis in Langley.
While Langley’s other large cannabis cultivator has caused controversy in Aldergrove over smell issues, Benne doesn’t believe that will be an issue for Zenabis.
“We’re doing things a lot differently,” he said. “First of all, we’re constructing a closed greenhouse facility. We’re able to keep most of the air inside the greenhouse.”
There are to be no roof vents, which should not only control odour, it helps the growers control humidity and other issues.
“Because we don’t have that exchange of air with the outside, we don’t have a lot of pest issues,” he said.
Air exhaust is to be controlled through carbon filters, and if those aren’t sufficient, biofiltration. That means basically pumping all the air exhaust through a big box full of bark and cedar chips to absorb the smell.
Russia: Novosibirsk Scientists Grow Strawberries With Aeroponics
A startup from Novosibirsk is entering the international market. Soon the technology will be sold to Arabian agronomists. Until then, the scientists continue experimenting with strawberries in the basement of the campus
A startup from Novosibirsk is entering the international market. Soon the technology will be sold to Arabian agronomists. Until then, the scientists continue experimenting with strawberries in the basement of the campus.
The experimental greenhouse is as clean as an operation room. Special sensors monitor the humidity and the temperature levels. This is where the scientists conduct their experiments with strawberries. Some of the plants are grown in traditional soil, and the rest are grown in accordance with aeroponics.
“This is what the roots look like. As there is no soil, there are no pests either. Just the clean white roots hanging in the air”, shares Mr. Ivan Lapshin, the agronomist.
An automated system delivers all the substances required for plant growth. The agronomist uses switches on the machine: strawberries have much better conditions for growing on the shelves than in the open field.
The first crops grown according to the new technology are 20% taller than the regular ones. The result is due not only to aeroponics, the climate as well as the lighting strength and the length of the artificial light day have been carefully calculated.
The innovators are planning to give access to the technology to a wide audience so that anyone could grow fresh vegetables, berries and greenery in any free room all year round. The shelves are fully automated so no agronomist is required to assist them.
“We would like that people in Magadan have fresh strawberries in winter. And that they don’t fly from Egypt or Lebanon but have a proper flavor and freshness”, noted Mr. Timofey Pavlov, agronomist.
Soon the scientists will start mass production of their vertical farms. The technology raised big interest with representatives of the United Arab Emirates, where vertical farming is most pertinent. The scientists are preparing the equipment for delivery.
Source: www.nsktv.ru
Publication date: 5/9/2019
Living Greens Farm Becomes One of the Largest Indoor Farms in the World
On Feb. 22, Living Greens Farm Will Open Their Third Grow Room In Faribault, Minn.
FARIBAULT, MINN. (PRWEB) FEBRUARY 13, 2019
With the opening of a new grow room, Living Greens Farm, a vertical, indoor aeroponic farm that provides year-round fresh salads, microgreens and herbs, is set to become the largest vertical plane aeroponic farm in the world on February 22, 2019. This brings their farming operation to 60,000 square feet – allowing Living Greens to offer produce that’s better for you and the environment. Unlike most produce, Living Greens Farm never uses pesticides, herbicides or GMOs – delivering the highest standards in food safety. Because Living Greens’ products are fresher, they contain more vitamins and nutrients than conventional produce.
While aeroponics has been around for decades, Living Greens Farm has discovered a way to successfully transition and improve this technology for commercial production. Aeroponics is the practice of suspending a plant’s roots in the air and spraying them with a nutrient-rich solution, instead of burying them in soil. Living Greens Farms’ patented vertical plane design allows one acre to produce the equivalent of hundreds of conventional acres. A high-tech computer system manages the plants growing conditions for variables such as light, temperature, humidity and CO2 to grow year-round produce. Overall, Living Greens Farms’ system uses 200 times less land and 95 percent less water than traditional growing methods. While other vertical aeroponic farms are larger in square footage, Living Greens Farms’ vertical plane design is the first of its kind and is more efficient than other aeroponic growing methods which decreases labor by up to 60 percent.
“Our patented growing technology has changed the game of aeroponics, within one year our new farm will save 24 million gallons of water and several hundred thousand miles of shipping – saving over 35,000 gallons of diesel and nearly a million pounds of CO2 emissions," said Dana Anderson, Chairman and CEO of Living Greens Farm. “With our third grow room, Living Greens Farm will nearly triple its capacity, move into major market segments and position the company for even stronger growth in 2019. The expansion places Living Greens as the world’s largest vertical plane aeroponic farm in the world.”
Living Greens Farm’s new grow room will allow an expansion of their consumer product line into new states including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota by February 2019.
ABOUT LIVING GREENS FARM
Headquartered in Minnesota, Living Greens Farm is the world’s largest vertical plane aeroponic farm. Living Greens Farm produce requires 95 water and 99 percent less land to grow year-round and all products are grown without pesticides or GMOs. Living Greens Farm has a full product line that includes salads, microgreens and herbs available throughout the Midwest. For more information, please visit http://www.livinggreensfarm.com
The Future of Farming Is Up In The Air
David Thorpe | 14 February 2019
Food that’s grown in the air instead of soil could soon appear on plates in Britain and other parts of the world.
A new investment deal worth $1.8 million to build indoor farms uses technologies developed by a company called LettUs Grow, a Bristol, UK-based startup that designs irrigation and control technology for vertical farms.
The startup will partner with ECH Engineering, which manufactures controlled environment technology, traditionally in refrigeration, and urban agriculture experts from Grow Bristol. Bristol has made a name for itself as Britain’s greenest city.
The company is one of a number of startups in the fast-expanding area of indoor growing who are supplying farm management software, crop analysis and testing services, through to full indoor farm design and build.
A glimpse of the pilot aeroponics project in Bristol showing a variety of produce being tested using the system.
Following earlier seed funding, if you’ll pardon the expression, it’s now scaling up operations to produce its aeroponic system, which suspends plants in the air and feeds the roots via a nutrient-dense mist. This technique results in faster growth rates than conventional hydroponics.
“The nutrients we use are made with mineral salts, not chemicals,” co-founder and managing director of LettUs Grow Charlie Guy told The Fifth Estate.
“They’re formulated for the vegetative stage of growth in hydroponics and aeroponic systems and precisely balanced and manufactured for great results.
“In our system we reclaim and recycle most of our water and any nutrients not absorbed by the plants. Due to this recapture and reuse, we use about 95 per cent less water than traditional field-based agriculture and 30 per cent less than typical hydroponics with our unique aeroponic technology.”
Since the plants are indoors, pest control is possible without pesticides and fungicides, making the production process organic. Previous trials have seen crop yield increases of over 70 per cent compared to conventional techniques for leafy greens, salads and herbs.
Yields and crop cycle times vary from crop to crop. The shortest is just five days for certain microgreens, to just over 30 days for head lettuce from seed.
A pilot project involving Grow Bristol involved an indoor hydroponic vertical farm that produced 100 kilograms of nutrient dense leafy greens every month without the use of pesticides and with minimal environmental impact. It tested over 50 crop varieties and sold the products to over 60 customers.
Having tested over 40 different varieties LettUs Grow’s core crops are: coriander (micro), fennel (micro), leek (micro), kale, pea shoots, sunflower shoots, radish, red cabbage, lettuce (many varieties), coriander, watercress, basil, and pak choi. “They’re our main crops, but we’re also growing rooting and fruit crops too (strawberries, spring onions and carrots, for example),” Guy says.
“We are expanding this facility in 2019 by over 10 times, to allow the testing of more and more crops and to expand our work into strawberries and root crops,” he adds.
Government funding
The $718,810 government funding is derived from the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, and will be matched by $157,918 from other sources and research grants.
The grants came hot on the heels of the disruptive startup’s most recent investment round, where they raised $835,179 from ClearlySo, Europe’s leading impact investment bank, which has an extensive network of high-net-worth individual and institutional investors.
“Our investors see the value, both in terms of financial and environmental/social returns from tackling this systemic global problem. That’s why they got involved in LettUs Grow. LettUs Grow provides the technological innovation piece to the vertical smart farming movement that is currently trending rapidly in the urban context,” investment manager at ClearlySo Matias Wibowo says.
The company has ambitions to supply a rapidly growing global market for efficient and sustainable farming technology.
By 2050, humanity has to increase food production by 70 per cent to feed over 9 billion people without breaking the planet’s life-support systems, which would happen if present agricultural and food industry logistics trends continue. Aeroponics can help to address the colossal degree of waste that presently exists throughout the supply chain.
“The global agri-tech industry is very exciting right now, all stemming from the necessity to improve the economic and environmental sustainability of food production. We are fielding enquiries from all around the world from food producers and farmers who want to experience the benefits of our technology across a growing range of crops,” Charlie Guy says.
The environmental footprint
The Fifth Estate asked Charlie Guy about the environmental footprint of the technology and the energy used in a given system, compared to a soil based or hydroponic system.
He says that it depends on a number of factors, including choice of crop, choice of technology, retail route, geography, climate and season. “One of the key benefits of indoor growing, over traditional methods, is the massively reduced supply chain length. This cuts the carbon footprint of produce substantially.”
LettUs Grow are working on integrating indoor and vertical growing with renewable energy technologies to further reduce energy costs and the carbon footprint.
“Indoor, vertical growing generally acts as a substitute for imported produce,” Guy says, quoting studies claiming that CO2 reductions of up to 90 per cent are achievable by growing produce at its point of consumption using hydroponics, compared to the carbon cost of importing the same product from Europe.
He also refers to independent, academic studies into the startup’s technology that have shown that its patent-pending aeroponic technology can reduce the carbon cost of production against traditional hydroponic vertical farms by between 60 and 90 per cent.
But can the operation scale up? “Scale of operation is one of these determining factors and the vertical growing industry is still some way off the scale currently reached in glasshouse growing,” Guy says.
“The productivity increases demonstrated by LettUs Grow’s aeroponic technology represent another step-change in economic viability of farms. This enables smaller farms to deliver a return on investment up to 50 per cent faster than traditional hydroponic indoor farms.
“Energy and labour are two of the greatest operational costs of running an indoor farm and LettUs Grow are working on solutions to bring these two costs down substantially. LED lighting continues to fall in price and increase in efficiency and advanced automation processes are reducing labour costs further still.”
However, Guy says his system is “lighting agnostic”. “Anyone can use our system with any lighting. In fact, you can use our aeroponic technology without any lights, such as in glasshouses.”
To reduce costs, the company is investigating automation, not dissimilar to that found in giant Amazon warehouses. “We have designed our own automated farm management system called Ostara. It is breaking down barriers to entry for indoor farming and aeroponics. Aeroponic technology has historically been seen as complex and difficult to implement. Ostara makes aeroponics easy.”
The company plans to license its technology in the future. Watch out for indoor farms springing up near you in the not too distant future.
David Thorpe is the author of the book The One Planet Life and the forthcoming book One Planet Cities.
Tags: energy, farming, food, technology
Samson Ogbole Is A Nigerian Farmer Who Wants To Bring Aeroponics To The World
Ogbole says that there are many advantages to aeroponics, the biggest being that you can grow crops at any time of the year.
by Perry Miller
Samson Ogbole is a Nigerian farmer who is trying to solve the problem of land shortages in his native country. Nigeria’s population has now reached 190 million, but there isn’t enough land in the country to grow the food needed for the ever-growing population. So, Ogbole has found a solution — aeroponics.
This unconventional method is the process of growing plants in the air without using soil. Ogbole first got involved with soilless farming in 2014, and just two years later founded PS Nutraceuticals, a company that puts cutting-edge agricultural technologies into action to improve the efficiency of food production and to ensure food security.
“Soilless growing entails removing the soil component, bringing in substitutes, and applying fertilizer to enable the plants to grow,” Ogbole says. “With soilless farming, we have been able to push for what you call urban farming, where we now have farms in cities such that we are able to cut off the middlemen and marketers.”
Ogbole says that there are many advantages to aeroponics, the biggest being that you can grow crops at any time of the year. The method has also allowed them to eliminate pathogens that naturally exist in the soil and affect crops.
Nigeria needs an estimated 78.5 million hectares of land to produce enough food for the population. But, right now there are only 30 million hectares of farmland under cultivation, according to the International Trade Administration of the United States.
And, Ogbole says that only 46 percent of Nigerian soil is fertile to grow crops, so the country needs to take steps towards self-sustainability in food production and let technology play a more prominent role. He believes that the “war of the future will be fought through agriculture.”
“We’re bringing in technology into agriculture so that the youth can actually see this as a viable option,” explains Ogbole. “We also want to ensure that food production is no longer seasonal, and we’re also bringing in smart sensor technologies into agriculture so that you’re able to get feedback from your plants.”
The farmer added that the future of the economy depends on a few people who have bright ideas and can think outside the box. It is ideas, not money, that solves problems.
Via CNN
Images via Shutterstock
Worms, Fish Farms, Hydroponics, Aeroponics Help Fuel Oregon Hotel
Many of the celebrities that stay at The Nines have requested tours of the food lab and their private chefs that travel with them are fascinated at what the restaurant is doing.
Author: Nina Mehlhaf
November 19, 2018
PORTLAND, Ore. — Some believe that the future of food combines technology and transparency, so diners know where their food comes from, and that it shouldn't come from far away. A Portland hotel is experimenting with how to do it.
Jeff Brown, the general manager of food and beverage at The Nines Hotel, is leading the charge at his facility.
And he's doing it far from the hotel lobby, and deep underground from the restaurants and kitchens of The Nines hotel.
The Nines, a luxury hotel in downtown Portland, is growing much of its own food in hydroponic facilities in the basement of the hotel. Photos by Nina Mehlhaf, KGW 2018
"Let's go feed our fish," Brown says enthusiastically as he punches in the code to unlock the keypad to a food lab in the sub-basement of the hotel. "These are tilapia, they are about 8 months old," he says of a tank full of open-mouth fish eager for food.
They're part of the farm of the future. The goal for those who embrace food-based technology growing practices is to allow food to be produced even in outer space or catastrophic climate situations.
The fish poop provides nitrate which acts as a fertilizer and is filtered through into water for some small tomato plant and basil starts nearby. It's known as aquaponics.
And hydroponics grows plants without fish, just water, LED lights to mimic the sun and no soil. Lettuce and basil grown in the hydroponic tubs in the basement are being served on the menu at Urban Farmer restaurant, one of the hotel's two signature restaurants.
"This is what I'm most excited about," says Brown as he opens the double doors to a purple-hued lit cabinet, much taller than he is. A sophisticated setup that soon, hotel guests will get to see when it's moved up to a room near the lobby. This is the aeroponics garden.
The Nines, a luxury hotel in downtown Portland, is growing much of its own food in hydroponic facilities in the basement of the hotel. Photos by Nina Mehlhaf, KGW 2018
"So these are just misters and it's just misting the root." It's the same way Matt Damon survived on Mars in the movie "The Martian." Artificial light, mist, no soil. Brown and his chefs have beta-tested 102 types of vegetables, fruit and flowers in the past year, experimenting with which method works best.
"The chefs love that they can grow specific foods and grab it themselves and don't have to worry about foods being wilted or old and they can speak to it to customers, it's the transparency component," said Brown.
"If you think about it, it's simply, it's just seeds, light and water yet people are fascinated by it. We eliminate the carbon footprint this way. But the staff feel like they're part of something bigger. They can contribute to the guest's dining experience."
Another basement-level down, in the hotel's huge trash room, another hotel is humming along. Urban Farmer and Departure, the hotel's restaurants, compost salad scraps, coffee grounds and newspaper into a huge plastic bin for red wiggler worms. The worms eat the scraps and make a nitrate-rich soil that fertilizes the plants in the food lab. The tilapia also eat the worms.
Brown loves technology almost as much as he loves food. He has ideas for augmented reality at the restaurant dinner table as well that would get rid of the high cost and trees of printing menus every day.
"You would get your phone out and look at a marker, that's what they call it, on the table for instance. And the menu would pop up on their phone and you can move it around and learn more about things through other markers around the restaurant. What farm their steak comes from, or more about the process of how their vegetables were grown here in Oregon."
Many of the celebrities that stay at The Nines have requested tours of the food lab and their private chefs that travel with them are fascinated at what the restaurant is doing.
© 2018 KGW
Technological Supplier THORILEX Is Looking For Partners And Distributors
THORILEX launched several new products this summer including reusable THORILEX Hydroponics baskets for an automatic vertical THORILEX Hydroponics system and the company is looking for partners and distributors now.
“We can see a huge opportunity on the vertical farming market that is still moving forward with a significant growth at a CAGR of 22%. The vertical farming market is projected to grow from present 2,45 billion € to 6.54 billion € till the year 2023. We would like to find great partners and distributors to grow.” Explains Marek Hrstka from THORILEX
“I know that we have truly great products that are now placed in the THORILEX Farm in the biggest glass house complex in our country and it is possible to visit the farm to see the products in operation. Finding truly great partners or distributors is important to achieve our strategy.”
“It will take some time to find the right one. We are looking for someone who haS similar thoughts, likes, innovations and have experience in the horticulture industry. It can be a big or a small company or even an individual.
We are looking for a win-win situation where both sides are prospering from mutual cooperation.” Concludes Marek
What’s The Difference: Hydroponics Vs. Aquaponics Vs. Aeroponics
Three distinct systems – all vying for the top spot in the niche of alternative growing systems.
May 9, 2018
By Heather
Three distinct systems – all vying for the top spot in the niche of alternative growing systems.
What differentiates these three systems from one another? What makes them work? These are the areas that we will be tackling today.
Hydroponics vs. aquaponics vs. aeroponics – which one is the superior system?
Hydroponics
What Is It?
The principle of hydroponics is the oldest among the three because the use of soil-less setups has been around since the age of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
A hydroponics system has two main parts: the grow beds and the reservoir.
The reservoir contains the nutrient solution or the water mixed with various nutrients that plants need in order to grow successfully in the media bed. The grow beds, on the other hand, contain the media and the ‘cups’ that will hold the plants in place.
To clarify, growth media will replace soil in a hydroponics setup. There are many kinds of growth media to choose from: coconut coir, perlite, organic-polymer composites, rockwool, etc.
Among the beginning enthusiasts market, the most popular is coconut coir because it’s 100% organic, expands tremendously with water and can accommodate plants easily – with spectacular results.
Perlite, on the other hand, is hailed as a near-perfect medium for growing plants but it is particularly light, which makes it problematic for flood and drain systems as it can easily float away along with the small current of the water in the grow bed.
Organic-polymer combos/composites like Perfect Starts are becoming increasingly popular because they’re easy to use and are not deformed when germinating plants are transferred from the growth trays to the main growing beds.
And finally, we have rockwool. Rockwool is a type of reusable media as it can be sanitized with steam washing after every growing season.
Rockwool is actually melted rock spun into slabs and other shapes/sizes for the purpose of growing plants.
The main point of contention with rockwool is that it’s not very environmentally friendly and thus, it goes against the main principle of switching to a more environmentally friendly method of cultivating plants.
The type of media used in a hydroponic system is so important because it will dictate the efficiency in which plants will be able to absorb the nutrients from the solution.
One of the key problems with hydroponics is that roots sometimes succumb to low oxygen levels, which predisposes crops to premature death.
A solution that growers have found effective in dealing with poor aeration and oxygen zone issues is combining two kinds of media to get the best attributes of each one.
Our personal recommendation would be to combine 50% coconut coir with 50% perlite.
Perlite is amazing when it comes to absorbing and delivering moisture plus it also improves the overall aeration of the plant’s root area. Both are highly regarded in the hydroponics community and both are also widely available to growers everywhere.
Tip: Coconut coir can be made more effective with the addition of perlite.
Hydroponics Pros And Cons
The main advantage of hydroponics is it’s designed for long-term cultivation of almost any kind of crop.
Commercial hydroponic growers harvest hundreds of kilograms of crops easily using large rockwool slabs.
The system simply works and can be easily expanded if you want to make money off your hydroponics system.
The downside is that with the booming interest in hydroponics in recent years, the price of the chemical compounds needed to create a viable nutrient solution has been steadily rising due to the over-mining of these minerals.
Another problem with hydroponics is that it uses relatively more water because after a time the buildup of salts becomes too much for the system and water has to be replaced so as not to kill the plants.
Also, there is a need to check the electrical conductivity of the water every day to make sure that the pH of the water is just right. Fluctuations in the pH level of the water can damage plants and eventually cause a die-off.
Aquaponics
Aquaponics is a hybrid system that combines the best of aquaculture and hydroponics. System-wise, it looks like a hydroponic system, but instead of relying on a main reservoir that contains a nutrient solution, the source of nutrients will be a vat of live, swimming fish.
How does this work? When you feed fish, the fish will naturally excrete waste. The waste mixes with the water, increasing the ammonia levels.
Obviously, this waste has to be mediated and reduced, so as not to kill the fish. Normally, fish tanks are regulated by biological filters and other types of filters that neutralize ammonia and reduce the impact of feces on the fish.
In an aquaponics setup, water from the fish tank is recirculated throughout the system so that it passes through the grow beds, where crops are steadily being cultivated.
The plants absorb dissolved nutrients in the water and process ammonia, which is highly toxic to fish in increased levels.
Bacteria residing the in the roots of plants, as well as good bacteria from the gut of fish work together to establish a balanced ecosystem where both fish and plants will survive.
After about half a year, the mini-ecosystem formed by an aquaponics setup will begin to show signs of high-level, self-regulation.
This will be the time when both fish and plants will begin to truly flourish. There will be great increases in both fish yield and plant yield, and the maintenance of the system will become even easier.
Tip: Be sure to check the roots of plants for signs of rot.
Aquaponics Pros And Cons
The best thing about aquaponics is you will be essentially hitting two birds with one stone – you will be raising fish and growing crops at the same time.
Fish waste, which is something that is regulated in aquaculture, will no longer be considered a problem because it becomes a sought-after source of nutrition for the plants.
Without fish waste, plants wouldn’t have nutrients.
The plants, on the other hand, will serve as a 24/7 ammonia control center for the fish tank, reducing the ammonia load and preventing toxicity in the water.
Fish are sensitive to ammonia and even a small increase in the ammonia content in the water can cause stress, shock, and disease.
Additionally, aquaponics growers now add red worms to the grow beds to increase the efficiency of waste breakdown and subsequently, the distribution of nutrients to plants.
Red worms are first grown on soil and upon adulthood, they are then soaked/washed and then transferred to the growth bed of an aquaponics setup.
The process of breaking down physical waste into smaller particles through the digestive action of red worms is – you got it right, composting!
Yes, it is amazing to imagine that you can actually compost organic material on a grow bed, on stuff that isn’t actually soil.
But there you have it – red worms do the job quite splendidly.
In addition to helping improve the nutrient levels of the water being fed to the plants, there is another big reason why red worms are now being regularly included in aquaponics systems: e. coli.
E. coli is a common pathogen/bacteria found in fish feces. E. coli infections can bring down a full-grown, healthy adult and bring him to the hospital.
Imagine what a widespread e. coli outbreak can do to a tank full of fish, with no other place to hide from the swimming bacteria.
E. coli colonizes fish feces, so these need to be broken down more quickly to prevent an e. coli outbreak from taking over the system.
Red worms can do this perfectly because they need to eat fish feces to survive.
Is there a downside to an almost perfect system? One of the downsides of aquaponics culture is you have to be very specific with the design of the system so you won’t have to shut it down during the winter.
Obviously, you can’t move large equipment and vats indoors, unless you have a really big house (or garage) but all the same, it’s an issue since frozen water can easily kill fish and winter does the same to plants.
Another downside to the system is even if you only want to grow crops for consumption or sale, you still have to tend to your fish well enough so they don’t continually die off.
Fish care can be learned and if you are a natural hobbyist and if you don’t mind looking at another component in a system, then tending to your fish won’t be much of a problem.
Aeroponics
What is It?
Aeroponics is a variation of hydroponics, but instead of using a grow bed filled with media, the plants are instead suspended, with roots facing a sprinkler system connected to the main nutrient reservoir.
Depending on the plant and the design, aeroponics systems generally use little to no media at all.
Now, you may already be wondering – what is the point of all this?
Why not just use media like everyone else? Why do you have to install a sprinkler system that periodically sprays the roots of plants with the nutrient solution?
It all boils down to oxygen. Believe it or not, even if the roots of the plants are down there in the soil, these still need oxygenation in order to thrive.
One of the limitations of hydroponics is because the roots are also submerged in water and the media, there is often poor oxygenation, which hampers plant growth.
Aeroponics solves this problem by completely liberating the roots of the plants and allowing it to come into contact with pure air.
The results are astounding.
Crops grow two to three times their normal size and yields are simply amazing.
Root formations are also incredible. Normally, the taproot of plants only have a moderate amount of root hairs around them.
In plants grown using the aeroponics method, the roots flourish widely and the root hairs become really thick – a tangle of healthy root hairs just enjoying the exposure to oxygen.
Aeroponics Pros And Cons
As with any system, aeroponics has its own set of ups and downs. The main advantage of this system is crops grow incredibly quickly and the yields are high.
If you are after high yield and shorter growing periods, aeroponics is certainly something to think about, especially if you are already investing in equipment and space for this endeavor.
Aeroponics also uses the least amount of water over time and all excess water that isn’t used by the roots of the plants are simply drained back to the nutrient tank.
Tip: Always have backup power and an extra pump in an aeroponics setup.
The nutrient tank is checked daily, much like a conventional hydroponics system.
The pump and spray system is submerged in the water and through a simple timing mechanism, is able to deliver short mists of water to the roots of the plants.
And now for the downsides. Room air doesn’t store water, even if it’s really humid. Humidity is not enough to sustain the roots of plants at all.
Aeroponics is extremely dependent on the misting system. If something should happen to the misting system, then the plants can die easily as a result of dried up roots.
To avoid this, you have to plan ahead. The misting system needs to have backup power and you need to have a backup misting system too, in case the first one fails for some reason. This usually means having an identical pump waiting in store to replace the main once it breaks down.
The misting heads also need to be checked periodically for clogs. We recommend replacing these misting heads instead of just cleaning them to get optimum results.
Remember – your plants are at the mercy of the misting system. They’re not submerged in water and plants are like fish out of water when there’s periodic misting taking place.
Container Farms: A New Type of Agriculture
Innovators within the produce industry are breaking the boundaries of food production
August 20, 2018 6:00 AM, EDT
Innovators within the produce industry are breaking the boundaries of food production — by growing crops not in fields, but in recycled shipping containers.
This modern twist on farming is designed to bypass some of the challenges and restrictions that farmers traditionally have faced, such as extreme weather, pests and limited growing seasons.
By overcoming these limitations, farming operations are capable of producing more food and growing certain crops in regions that otherwise would have had to import them.
By growing this food locally, suppliers are able to cut out the long travel distances often necessary to transport these foods to certain markets.
According to Jeff Moore, vice president of sales at produce supplier Tom Lange Co., shorter travel distances provide numerous benefits, such as fresher product, reduced transportation costs, less waste and fewer empty shelves at markets.
The use of innovative farming methods also is being pushed in Canada. Grocery retailer Loblaw Companies Ltd. announced plans to spend $150 million more each year with Canadian farmers by 2025. As part of that effort, the company pledged to help farmers implement growing techniques that will enable them to produce fruits and vegetables in Canada that the country has traditionally imported.
Freight Farms and Tiger Corner Farms are two companies that are growing produce in shipping containers through the use of hydroponics and aeroponics — methods of growing plants without the use of soil.
Freight Farms is working with NASA to find ways to grow produce in space. (Freight Farms)
Both companies use nutrient-rich water as a substitute for soil, but beyond that, their container farms are quite different.
Tiger Corner Farms’ farming units consist of five shipping containers; four are used for farming and the fifth one is used as a working station where the plants germinate and as a post-harvest station.
Tiger Corner Farms, based out of Summerville, S.C., is a family company that began with the combined interest of Stefanie Swackhamer, the general manager, and her dad, Don Taylor.
Through Grow Food Carolina, a nonprofit organization focused on preserving farming in South Carolina, Tiger Corner Farms has partnered with two other companies: Vertical Roots and Boxcar Central. Tiger Corner Farms manufactures farming units from recycled shipping containers, Boxcar Central works on the automation of the hardware and software used for these container farms, and Vertical Roots deals with the production of the produce.
With Tiger Corner Farms’ shipping container farms, Vertical Roots can increase food production. Having 13 farms in total, Vertical Roots is able to produce about 40,000 heads of lettuce in about half the time it would take a traditional farm.
Vertical Roots sells its produce to grocery stores such as Whole Foods and Harris Teeter.
Vertical Roots says it can produce 40,000 heads of lettuce in about half the time of a traditional farm. (Tiger Corner Farms)
For Vertical Roots, founded by Andrew Hare and Matt Daniels, working with Tiger Corner Farms was a no-brainer.
“Providing cleaner, fresher, better access to food was something all four of us were wanting to do. They wanted to provide jobs and educate people on the importance of sustainable agriculture, and we wanted to do the same thing,” said Hare, Vertical Roots’ general manager. “We wanted to bring transparency and education and empowering our community in knowing where their food comes from and how important the freshness and quality is.”
Meanwhile, Boston-based Freight Farms offers a hydroponic “farm in a box,” dubbed the Leafy Green Machine, built entirely inside a single 40-foot shipping container.
The company, founded in 2010 by Brad McNamara and Jon Friedman, also offers a farming service and mobile app, Farmhand, to aid farmers in monitoring their farms.
Freight Farms’ customers range from individual farmers to universities and corporations.
One of those customers is Kim Curren of Shaggy Bear Farm in Bozeman, Mont., which provides local restaurants with leafy greens that aren’t grown in the region.
Someday, hydroponic farming might even play a role in space exploration and colonization.
Freight Farms is working with NASA and Clemson University to improve the efficiency of its farming units in the hopes of eventually using them in space.
Joshua Summers is one of the professors at Clemson that worked on the project. Professors Cameron Turner and John Wagner and students Doug Chickarello, Malena Agyemang and Amaninder Singh Gill also worked on the project.
Lettuce grows inside a climate-controlled container farm from Tiger Corner Farms. (Tiger Corner Farms)
In order to enable the farming units to work in space, the Clemson team is focusing on making it a closed-loop system by looking at thermal and electrical loads of the LED lights as well as the heating, ventilation and air conditioning unit.
While working on this project, there is one major issue that Summers said needs to be taken into consideration.
“One of the major issues in moving into space is gravity. As you move away from gravity, a lot of their growing patterns are based on plants growing in a specific way,” Summers said. “Now you don’t know exactly how they are going to grow, so it’s going to be a bit more random, so we have to change some of the geometric layout to make it more efficient in terms of volume.”
Clemson, NASA and Freight Farms are working on a new proposal to continue this project.
Through its work with individual farmers as well as organizations such as NASA, Freight Farms is taking steps toward its goal of empowering anyone to grow food anywhere.
Farm in a Box
Local agricultural technology may change the way we eat
(Clockwise from top left) A lighting system nurtures infant greens; Tiger Corner Farms general manager Stefanie Swackhamer and her dad, AmplifiedAg CEO Don Taylor; green oak lettuce, nearly ready to harvest.
For conscientious eaters, the holy trinity of organic, local, and in-season can be difficult to come by. Leafy greens, in particular, are tricky to grow in the Lowcountry, and thus tough for the likes of schools and grocers to obtain. Local start-up Tiger Corner Farms has a solution: aeroponic farms built inside shipping containers, where humidity, light, nutrients, and carbon dioxide levels can all be controlled, yielding a year-round supply.
Controlled environmental agriculture is booming nationwide, but Tiger Corner has an edge: it’s part of a parent company called AmplifiedAg founded by former Benefitfocus CTO Don Taylor. AmplifiedAg’s two other divisions are Boxcar Central, an automation software platform that lets users dial in exact specifications for any plant, and Vertical Roots, whose growers operate farms in Summerville, off Clements Ferry Road, and outside Daniel Island eatery Dockery’s (which serves the greens).
“We have a continuous feedback loop that allows us to quickly make adjustments to our product to best serve the farmers,” says Tiger Corner general manager Stefanie Swackhamer about Vertical Roots, which sells to GrowFood Carolina and retailers like Whole Foods, Harris Teeter, and Earth Fare. They also supply greens to Dorchester District Two schools, and “This school year, we’re implementing a farm at Ashley Ridge High School to allow students to get involved in the growing process,” says Swackhamer.
Head Count
How many farms—and leafy green plants—is Tiger Corner Farms producing? Take a look at the numbers:
A full, turnkey farm—including 4 pods and a “clean room”—takes about 4 weeks to build and costs $550,000.
Each pod yields 3,800 to 7,000 plants (depending on variety) per month.
Tiger Corner has built 18 pods since 2016, making its very first sale to The Citadel.
Resources:
Photographs by (4) Melissa Sommer
Living Greens Unveiling Large Aeroponic Vegetable Farm
Living Greens said that its Faribault farm will be the second-largest aeroponics operation behind that of industry leader AeroFarms.
OCTOBER 6, 2018 - NEAL ST.ANTHONY@STANTHONYSTRIB
LIVING GREENS Executives Dave Augustine, left, and Dana Anderson foresee a rapid expansion of Living Greens Farm of Faribault.
The several-year founder of a growing aeroponic farm near Faribault is ready to prove his Living Greens low-input, no-dirt operation will have a big effect on the emerging world of year-round indoor vegetable growing.
CEO Dana Anderson, 50, a former financial adviser who worked on farms as a youth near Spicer, Minn., started tinkering with aeroponics in his Prior Lake garage in 2010.
Last year, Living Greens, staked by $8 million over several years contributed by founding shareholders, started slowly by testing and eventually producing increasingly larger crops of lettuce with a high-tech, rapid-growth system rooted in nutrient-rich misting and LED lighting.
By early next year, following completion of the last stage of construction, Living Greens should amount to 60,000 square feet of stacked, mechanized growing space capable of producing up to 3 million heads of high-quality lettuce.
That’s several fast-growing crops in one year.
The business plan and initial production proved impressive enough to recently draw $12 million in an inaugural round of institutional funding from Boston-based private-equity funds NXT and Wave Equity Partners.
“We’re exiting the research-and-development stage and going to market,” Anderson said.
The $6 million Faribault factory-farm will prove Living Greens’ technology innovation and its year-round, premium-lettuce model and spur construction of a second plant within a year outside of Minnesota, backers said.
“We think we have an opportunity to be a market leader in leafy greens,” Anderson said. “There are projections nationally that up to 50 percent of leafy greens could be grown indoors within 10 years from almost nothing today.
“Our goal is to be the largest indoor [farm operation]; corporate-owned and through licensing of the technology,” Anderson said. “We’re looking at joint ventures with food-service companies around the world.”
Living Greens said that its Faribault farm — a floor footprint of about 20,000 square feet that rises to about 16 feet, thus providing its 60,000 square feet of growing space — will be the second-largest aeroponics operation behind that of industry leader AeroFarms of Newark, N.J. It operates a 70,000-square-foot indoor farm in addition to smaller installations.
Living Greens already supplies a growing list of Minnesota and Wisconsin grocers with several types of leaf lettuce, arugula and mixed greens through Robinson Fresh, a division of C.H. Robinson.
By next year, it will have installed the technology to produce around 3 million bagged packages of salad greens for retail distributions.
Typical salad bags, depending on whether they include dressing and other ingredients as part of planned “salad kits,” will retail for $2.99 to $3.99.
“We’re producing about 500,000 units a year now, and it will be a sixfold expansion by spring,” Anderson projected.
The 20-employee Living Greens operation includes chief technology officer Dave Augustine, a University of Minnesota-trained electrical engineer and veteran industrialist who joined the board several years ago.
Augustine, 55, who grew up on a farm, was a several-year board member who stepped into the executive ranks as overseer of the company’s technology integration.
Living Greens has been awarded four patents on its growing process, according to Anderson.
The firm plans to produce as much lettuce indoors as would be produced by 100 times the farmland, using 95 percent less water, no pesticides, herbicides or other chemicals.
It does so thanks to its density and computer-controlled environment that blends natural light and ultra efficient LED lighting that has dramatically dropped in price in recent years thanks to widespread business and residential embracement.
“The price has been dropping by about 20 percent a year as illumination has increased by about 50 percent,” Anderson said. “The risks of foodborne illness are extremely muted compared to the traditional food chain. We use a ‘reverse-osmosis’ process to remove all the particulates from the water.”
Then there’s the local pitch.
Living Greens plans to deliver a premium product locally, at lower cost, because it won’t have the long-haul transportation expense and up to two weeks’ time to deliver from Mexico or the California-Texas Sun Belt where most fall-winter vegetables are grown.
To be sure, Living Greens has dreams of being a big company in a fragmented but fast-developing indoor agriculture market.
They include Revol Greens, the Minnesota-based greenhouse grower that has added some water- and energy-conserving wrinkles of its own, as well as Plenty, the California-based indoor grower that has raised $200 million and also has its eyes on China.
The sector is driven by the premise that farmland is limited, and industrial-scale farming can be very expensive and uses what can be unsustainable amounts of water, chemicals and land.
The challenge for the small, indoor innovators such as Living Greens is to entice buyers with tasty produce at a competitive but profitable price that customers also will patronize for their regional and environmental pitches.
“This took us longer and cost us more than we’d hoped, but I think we have a better system and technological lead,” Anderson said. “It’s a tremendous opportunity because of the demand for fresh, year-round local produce.”
Neal St. Anthony has been a Star Tribune business columnist/reporter since 1984. His work has been recognized by the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.
Neal.St.Anthony@startribune.com 612-673-7144 @StAnthonyStrib
2nd Urban Agri Africa 2018
The world’s population is expected to increase by about 3 billion by 2050 and it is forecasted that nearly 80% of that population will live in urban centers.
Africa’s urban growth rate is at 3.5% the highest in the world and doubles the world average. The challenge of growing enough healthy food for Africa’s growing cities is enormous. At the same time, the stresses of climate change, and the declining availability of arable land and fresh water are challenging conventional agriculture as never before.
Many countries and companies are expressing strong interest in vertical farming business and urban agriculture. It is a solution to the weather and pests problems, food security, climate change and environmental preservation. Commercialization of vertical farming is catching on in Asia, Europe, USA, Russia and now Africa.
Many private companies are interested in growing crops in hydroponics, aquaponics and aeroponics systems in warehouses, greenhouses, containers and high scrapers. There is also a burgeoning interest in the production of medicinal plants in vertical farms.
Africa has unique opportunities for vertical farms. Feeding Africa’s rapidly growing urban population will continue to be a daunting challenge, but vertical farming – and its variations – is one of the most innovative approaches that can be tapped into as part of an effort to grow fresh, healthy, nutritious and pesticide-free food for consumers.
Learn more at 2nd Urban Agri Africa 2018 to be held on September 25-26 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The latest joint ventures and partnerships will be highlighted, case studies shared and strategies robustly debated. New trends, opportunities, and technologies will be showcased, once again providing the perfect platform for extraordinary networking opportunities for all Summit participants.
Find out more at 2nd Urban Agri Africa 2018.
To register or request event details... Contact
Jose at +65 6846 2366 or jose@magenta-global.com.sg today.
Nebullam Aims To Revolutionize Indoor Farming
Jul 16, 2018 | News
By leveraging artificial intelligence, Ames startup focused on introducing product-to-producer method of production
Founded in a region of the United States with, arguably, the richest soil on the planet, a young Ames-based startup is aiming to revolutionize farming – without any of that soil. Employing a combination of high pressure aeroponics and artificial intelligence (AI), Nebullam is making waves in an increasingly competitive indoor farming industry.
The company was founded in 2016 when two former community college classmates reconnected. Today, Nebullam is operating two model farms – simultaneously generating income to keep the lights on and providing proof of concept for their innovative approach to agriculture – and seeking investment from engaged venture capitalists across the country.
The Genesis of an Idea
The seed for Nebullam’s founding was planted almost a decade ago when Danen Pool, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, made a trip to Africa.
“The purpose of the trip was to provide water chlorinators to people in Swaziland and Johannesburg, South Africa,” Pool says. “A lot of the areas we visited were in a very arid climate. There was not a lot of fertile soil and produce had to be shipped in from long distances. It got me thinking about how you could sustainably grow produce in an area like that and that led me to begin researching different types of non-traditional growing techniques.”
That was in 2010. For months, Pool spent his free time experimenting with various forms of hydroponics and drip irrigation. By chance, during his research, he stumbled upon a NASA article detailing high pressure aeroponics, a technology developed originally in the 1980s as a method to grow produce on space missions.
The deeper Pool got into the science, the more he believed this was the way forward.
“It took me about six years to get a few system up and running,” Pool says, looking back. “I did all of the initial work in my home and it was promising. I could get the system up and going, leave it for a couple weeks and come back to it running just fine. I could grow produce very quickly and that was the major thing. Just with this first very rudimentary system, I could shorten growth cycles considerably.”
Reaching Out
With the technology, even in a very early stage, developed and tested, Pool knew that he needed some help with the business aspects of bringing his system to market. Among those at the top of Pool’s list was Clayton Mooney, a former classmate at Indian Hills Community College who had spent time as a professional poker player among other things.
“We had kept in touch, and I had been following what he was up to on social media,” Pool says of Mooney. “I knew he had returned to Ames and was in the startup space. I contacted him and let him know what I was thinking, hoping we could figure out a way to move forward together.”
Mooney took a measured approach to Pool’s initial pitch.
“Initially, I told him I’d be happy to look at his business plan and help him make connections here in Ames,” Mooney says. “I wasn’t really looking to get into something like this because I had a commitment coming up at Startup Ireland in Dublin. I told him I would take the summer to think about it.”
The summer in Dublin offered Mooney the time and space to consider the potential in full. The more he thought about it, he says, the more intrigued he became. Upon returning to Iowa, he was ready to partner with Pool to move the business forward. Mooney became the Chief Executive Officer, they settled on the name AeroLands, and began the startup process in earnest.
Building the Business
Among the newly formed team’s first actions was to reach out to experts at Iowa State University for feedback on the concept. The initial business model called for them to be producers – “indoor farmers” – providing their product from a warehouse. The longer term play was to put production units right into grocery stores and sell consumers produce they could pick themselves in the aisles of Hy-Vee or Fareway.
“We heard from a lot of people that they loved our technology but weren’t sold on our business model,” Mooney says. “The cost of labor just didn’t pencil out. We could grow indoors, but we were still going to need space to do it and workers to plant, manage and harvest the crops. That was all going to eat into our margins. We needed to figure out a way to automate as much as we possibly could.”
In the search for help in solving the automation challenge, Pool and Mooney met Mahmoud Parto, who would eventually become the Chief Software Architect and final member of the founding team. Mooney met Parto within the CYstarters cohort in summer of 2016. After learning of his background in computer and software engineering, Mooney asked Parto if he’d been interested in learning more about the company.
Initially, Pool and Mooney were just looking for a little help.
“When I showed him what we were working with in terms of automation, I was most interested in whether he could help us to reduce the cost of the equipment we were using to measure things like temperature and humidity,” Mooney says. “He came out of that meeting and was able to build us a working prototype with the same functionality, plus Bluetooth capability, for next to nothing.”
It was then, Pool and Mooney knew that Parto could play a pivotal role.
“I remember calling Danen that night,” Mooney says. “I told him we had to get Mahmoud on the team. We decided that night to offer him equity as a co-founder.”
Parto couldn’t commit to the idea at first.
“He told us he’d rather just help us out in the short term,” Mooney recalls. “But I think the gears started turning and it wasn’t long before he saw the potential and reached back out to accept our offer.”
Growing and Learning
With a full founding team established, the trio began looking for opportunities to get bigger and better. In December of 2016, they were accepted into the second cohort of the ISU Startup Factory.
The Startup Factory schooled the group on best practices in building a business while pushing them into a formal customer discovery process. The year-long program proved invaluable in clarifying the vision, developing a plan for growth, completing a friends and family round of investment, and preparing the team for pitching to larger investors. They also settled on the name change to Nebullam during their participation.
“The Startup Factory was instrumental in helping us to maintain a structured approach to building the company and keeping the team accountable to the vision,” Mooney says.
“The accountability is huge,” Pool adds. “I think the first time you become your own boss, you see the freedom to it, but there is also some trepidation that you are the one making the decisions. The intro classes were a big help to me in knowing what to expect.”
As part of their participation in the Startup Factory, the team was provided office space in the Vermeer building in the Iowa State University Research Park. With a location so close to Iowa State, it offered more than a place for meetings and to sit down in front of a laptop. It offered access to top tier interns to move the company forward.
“It is such a supportive entrepreneurial ecosystem,” Mooney says.
The Next Steps
Now “graduates” of the Startup Factory and a series of other accelerators and business development programs, the team at Nebullam has swelled to 10. They have settled on a hardware + software model that will enable indoor growers to leverage AI to fully automate the growing and harvesting process.
“The vast majority of indoor grow operations currently employ a producer-to-product model,” Pool says. “That means that the staff has to go to the product to plant it, tend to it, and harvest it, a method that isn’t much different from traditional farming.”
Nebullam, however, is developing proof of concept on a product-to-producer model. The plants would come to the producer, at a central transplanting and harvesting point. Using an elaborate network that learns with each crop cycle, everything is managed by AI – from what minerals are needed to spur growth, to when a given crop is ready for harvest.
This is a major differentiating factor for Nebullam when compared to others in the marketspace.
“There are a lot of startups on the hardware side, and a lot of others on the software side,” Pool says. “But running those varied systems together, there is a huge learning curve for the producer. We eliminate that. If you are powering your grow with Nebullam, we’ve eliminated any compatibility issues or learning curves.”
With Nebullam’s technology, when crops are ready to be picked, the system is automated to perform the entire process from harvesting and cleaning conveyor belts to planting the next crop.
“Everything will be monitored,” Pool says. “That monitoring will continually inform the network on what is working with a specific crop and help us to increase efficiencies and yields over time. The more we can automate, the more we can address the initial concerns that were raised in the infancy of our business about labor eating into our margins.”
The plan is being put into practice at the company’s second model farm, located in space at the ISU Research Park.
Nebullam’s vision – and the addition of Model Farm 2 – has been met with interest. The company was recently a top 3 finisher in the Young Entrepreneur Convention Pitch Competition, which is one of the largest single-day pitch competitions in the world. Through that, the team earned a coveted spot in angel investor Jason Calacanis’ intensive program for founders, Founder University. They have also reached the finals of a handful of other prestigious pitch and business plan competitions as they continue to identify individual accredited investors and venture capitalist firms to partner with in moving Nebullam along.
The team is confident they will find the right partner to bring Nebullam’s idea into practice on a large scale. And once that happens, the team is ready to shoot for the moon … or beyond.
“Our technology is applicable in zero gravity conditions,” Pool says with a smile.
“Seriously,” Mooney quickly adds, “we think we can complement a lot of the companies that are figuring out space travel. We might be nerding out a bit, but we are less than 1,500 days away from a spaceship landing on Mars. We are less than 2,500 days away from being a multi-planetary species. Who knows? Maybe our technology will be the one that makes it possible to nourish people as they explore space.”
While there is plenty to be done in those 2,500 days to make it happen, Mooney says the team is ready to do what it takes to make Nebullam a household name.
“The juice is always worth the squeeze,” he says.
Way To Grow: Urban Farms Are An Amenity At Many Developments
2018 Margaret Jackson, Bisnow Denver
As people increasingly demand to know where their food comes from, more developers are jumping on board to integrate urban farms into their projects.
Courtesy of Tracy Weil
RiNo Art District Creative Director Tracy Weil grows heirloom tomatoes at Farm 39 in RiNo
Take S*Park. Named for its heritage as Sustainability Park, the 99-unit residential project in Denver’s Curtis Park neighborhood includes a 7,200 SF greenhouse with 340 aeroponic towers that will grow leafy greens.
The greenhouse will be operated by Altius Farms, which will offer residents a vegetable subscription program, greenhouse tours and classes and community dinners with Denver celebrity chefs. Altius also will provide neighborhood restaurants with produce from the greenhouse.
Courtesy of Altius Farms
Altius Farms will grow leafy greens on towers like these at Scissortail Farms in Tulsa, Okla.
Altius Farms founder and CEO Sally Herbert said the tower system at S*Park will produce 75,000 pounds of leafy greens a year — the equivalent of 1.5 acres of conventional farming each month. The towers use 10% of the water of a traditional farm and produce 10 times the yield, and the produce is much fresher than what consumers find in grocery stores, she said. Colorado imports 97% of its produce, and after it spends seven to 14 days in transport, between 20% and 40% of it is discarded.
“When restaurateurs receive produce that’s come in from Arizona or California, it’s been harvested early and gets wilty or bruised,” she said. “You have to throw away the crappy stuff.”
NAVA Real Estate Development is taking a different approach at Lakehouse, its 12-story, 196-unit condominium project at Sloan’s Lake. The produce from its second-floor garden will be available only for residents of the 12-story building.
“We are growing a certain amount of vegetables and herbs on-site that will be professionally managed and harvested,” NAVA co-founder and CEO Brian Levittsaid. “We’ll have a harvest room where people can be part of a harvest. There will be opportunities where people can reach over and pick something and put it in their salad. There will be a juicing center and sauna where people can sit and enjoy the juice.”
Bisnow/Margaret Jackson
The greenhouse at S*Park will provide produce to residents and nearby restaurants.
The garden is just one component of NAVA’s efforts to ensure a healthy environment for residents of Lakehouse, which is seeking Well Building certification. It also must meet standards for air and water quality and fitness, among other things.
Urban Ventures has launched a wellness program that includes food production at Aria Denver development. Aria Denver has partnered with Regis University to launch the Cultivate Health program at its development in northwest Denver. Food production, in both gardens and greenhouses in the neighborhood, is just one component of the program, which is designed to support the health and wellness of residents living in the multi-generational, mixed-income community. Its food production partners are UrbiCulture Farms and Groundwork Denver.
Courtesy of Tracy Weil
Farm 39 in RiNo sells about 8,000 tomato plants a year.
Urban farming is a growing trend both in new developments and city neighborhoods.
Artist Tracy Weil, creative director of the RiNo Art District, co-founded Heirloom Tomato Farms with Carolyn Jansen in 2004 when they weren’t able to find the produce they wanted. They started with 175 plants, which they sold and gave to friends. Weil was on the board of The GrowHaus, a nonprofit indoor farm, marketplace and educational center in Denver’s Elyria-Swansea neighborhood. The GrowHaus, based in a historic 20K SF greenhouse, agreed to give him enough space to expand to 1,200 plants.
But then aphids from the herbs in The GrowHaus infested Weil's tomato plants, so he built his own greenhouse — Farm 39 — on an eighth of an acre at 3611 Chestnut Place in RiNo. Jansen started The Sparrow in Capital Hill. The combined farms are known as Heirloom Tomato Farms. Now, people line up every spring to purchase some of the 8,000 plants the two farms grow before they sell out.
“It’s been kind of a nice supplemental income,” he said. “As an artist, I wanted to diversify my income stream.
Using A Hydroponic System Vs Growing With Soil
by Stephen Campbell
June 08, 2018
Ah, one of life’s great debates: growing with a hydroponic system or with soil, an especially difficult question to answer for your first grow.
History has given us great success using dirt as a base, and in 1953, Austin Miller referred to soil as ‘the skin of the earth’. Throughout the years, the soil community has learned a few tricks. By adding nutrients, balancing pH, and enriching soil with organic ingredients, producers have made advanced planting mixes to ensure healthy plant growth.
So why consider a hydroponic system at all if soil has come so far? Well for starters, the advantages of hydroponics include offering the grower higher plant yields and automation, which for most people, are two very powerful motivations to switch away from the past, and move into the future. Let's take a more in-depth look at the two mediums:
HYDROPONICS
In a nutshell, a complete hydroponic system is simply growing plants without soil. There are many different types of hydroponic systems, we've listed some of these techniques below.
Aeroponics - The process of growing plants in an air or mist environment, without the use of soil or aggregate medium. Plant roots hang in the air, and a mist of nutrient-rich water is sprayed onto the roots periodically.
Aquaponics - The combination of aquaculture (raising aquatic animals such as snails, fish, or prawns in tanks) and hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment. The waste produced by aquatic animals supplies nutrients for the hydroponic plants. In turn, these plants purify the water for the animals.
Drip Irrigation - Also known as micro or localized watering, small drip emitters deliver a constant drip directly to the soil. This ensures that the soil is always moist, but not over watered.
DWC (Deep Water Culture) - A type of hydroponics system where plant roots continuously sit in a highly oxygenated water and nutrient solution. Oxygen is usually supplied using an airstone that pumps air to into the water.
Ebb & Flow - In this process, plant roots sit in a coarse growing medium for support, while a water and nutrient solution periodically flows past the roots on a set time schedule. This is similar to the ocean's rising and receding tides. This allows for the aeration of the roots, while automating the job of watering the plants by hand.
Nutrient Film Technique - This technique involves running a continuous oxygen and nutrient rich film of water over the plants roots in an enclosed space or tube.
All of these different techniques have one thing in common: they don’t need the roots to spread out in soil to absorb nutrients. Instead, they are fed a concentrated solution of oxygen and nutrients. This allows the roots to be packed into much smaller spaces.
All of these systems allow you to be creative and in control. You decide what nutrients to add, how much, and when. This control contributes to the increased speed and yield of growth you will experience.
There are additional benefits to going the hydro route. With a hydroponic system, you are using less water, as it is being recirculated to your plants and only changed out every 7-12 days. No more watching 10% of your runoff go to waste each watering. You also have a secret weapon in your battle against bugs, since eliminating soil from your operation will also eliminate certain bugs that can attack your plants.
SOIL
When it comes to soil, there are many different types and blends of soil available. So what's what?
Sand - Formed from bits of rock including limestone, quartz, granite, and shale. Drains water quickly.
Silt - Fine particles of organic material combined with sand. Very fertile, drains water well.
Muck - Primarily humus from drained swamps or bogs. Dense with little potassium.
Clay - Fine crystals formed by chemical reactions between minerals. Very poor draining.
Loam - A combination of the above. Organic loams must contain at least 20% organic matter.
Compost - Decayed organic matter. Can contain good bacteria, fungi, insects, worms, and microorganisms.
So head outside with a bucket and shovel right? Yeah, not so fast.
You should always ensure that you are buying your soil from a bag and not just getting it from outside, as store bought product has been treated to remove all of the bugs and critters that can tear-up your garden.
Soil not only provides a secure anchor for your plants and it’s roots, but it also aids in the retention and delivery of nutrients. Soil can act as a buffer for those nutrients, making it easier for the gardener to maintain a perfect nutrient balance.
One thing to watch out for is watering soil, as it can be surprisingly tricky. The number one issue new growers have is overwatering their precious plants.
New growers will try to be extremely attentive to their plants, and they normally want to get the most growth possible. This causes them to water too much and results in killing their plants. Over watering is dangerous because plant roots need to eat and breathe. Too much water logged in soil depletes oxygen, and thus the roots do not get enough oxygen to survive.
When you water your soil, it’s helpful to have some water runoff to ensure you have fully saturated your medium. Once watered, the soil needs to dry out, allowing the roots access to air before letting them drink again. It is a balance that once achieved, will produce consistent healthy results.
The Final Choice
In the end, whether you choose to use soil or hydroponics is, of course, up to you. There really is no right or wrong answer. Just weigh the pros and cons of each style and method, make a decision that works best for you, and then get growing!
Starting An Outdoor Hydroponic Garden
Indoor gardening can get expensive if you’re constantly running air conditioners and dehumidifiers. Why not take advantage of free sunlight and start an outdoor hydroponic garden?
Source: Pixbox77 / Dreamstime.com
Takeaway: Indoor gardening can get expensive if you’re constantly running air conditioners and dehumidifiers. Why not take advantage of free sunlight and start an outdoor hydroponic garden?
Indoor gardening can get expensive in the heat of the summer, especially if you’re constantly running air conditioners and dehumidifiers. Why not take advantage of all the free sunlight nature has to offer and start an outdoor hydroponic garden?
Outdoor hydroponics still provides the perfect balance of water and nutrients, and your plants will grow much faster than in soil. Plus, there’s no weeding!
Choose a Sunny Location for Your Hydroponic Garden
There is no substitute for full-spectrum summer sunlight, and best of all, it’s free! Even a 1,000W lamp, placed a foot from your plants, can’t compare with a sunny day in mid-July. So when setting up an outdoor hydroponic garden, pick a sheltered area with a good southern exposure if you can.
I’ve grown prolific amounts of basil in a nutrient film technique system in a parking lot, towers of aeroponic herbs and strawberries on my back porch, and a huge row of tomatoes in stonewool in front of my garage.
The vines grew so dramatically that strangers driving by would stop their cars, knock on my door and ask me how I was making the tomatoes grow so fast!
They were amazed when I showed them my hydroponic systems. By the end of the summer, the vines were growing up to the roof and I had a wall of gourmet-quality tomatoes.
Keep the Water Reservoir Cool
Plants will transpire a lot more water in the outdoor heat than when they are grown indoors, so make sure you top off the reservoir with cool water from your garden hose often. It’s also a good idea to keep the reservoir in the shade whenever possible.
In an ebb and flow system, it’s easy because the nutrient reservoir is underneath the flood table anyway. But if the reservoir is somewhat exposed, I like to at least partially bury it if I can. The earth acts as a natural heat sink to pull some of the excess heat out of the reservoir.
On the hottest days of the summer, adding a little ice to the reservoir can help. Keep a couple of two-liter bottles of water in the freezer, and drop one into the reservoir occasionally.
If you walk by later in the sweltering afternoon and you notice the ice has melted, put the bottle back in the freezer and drop in another. Luckily, the worst heat waves usually don’t last more than a few days, so such emergency measures are rarely needed.
Lower the Electrical Conductivity (EC)
In hot weather, it’s best to lower the electrical conductivity of the nutrient solution. For example, if I normally keep the EC for my lettuce-growing system at 1.2, I’ll lower it to 1 in the summer. Plants are thirstier in the summer, so doing everything possible to make it easier for them to take up water is a good thing.
Low-to-medium EC stimulates vegetative growth by making the nutrient solution less salty, while medium-to-high EC restricts vegetative growth. During the heavy fruiting and flowering stage, a little salt stress is good but watch your plants carefully. At the first sign of browning at the edges of the leaves, lower the EC a little more.
The worst thing that can happen to an outdoor hydroponic garden is to let the reservoir run dry. Plants won’t last long in the summer sun without water. It might be a good idea to add a float valve to your reservoir as an insurance policy.
If the water level gets too low, the float valve will open automatically and top off the tank with fresh water. Plants can go a few extra days without fertilizer, but they will only last a few hours without water. Plan ahead so you can enjoy a few days away at the beach when you want to.
Boost the Heat Tolerance of Plants
The best time to condition your plants against stressful situations is before the stress happens. In the earlier part of the summer, try adding a combination of humic acid and kelp extracts to your nutrient solution.
A 10-year study at Virginia Tech showed that humic acids combined with seaweed extracts work 50% better than either product alone. A 5:2 ratio of humic acid to kelp works best to greatly stimulate lateral root growth and improve overall root mass. When the summer heat comes, the more roots the better for taking up the extra water they need.
The humic acid/kelp combo also encourages the plant to make extra plant-protection agents. Under ideal conditions, plants have no trouble protecting themselves from cell damage, but when plants are under too much stress, they can’t keep up with the constant barrage of damaging free radicals.
Free radicals break down cell membranes such as chloroplast and mitochondrial membranes, which is why plants go from green to yellow to brown under excessive heat and UV light.
If you condition your plants against stress with a combination of humic acids and kelp, plants will produce 50% more of the protective molecules that sponge free radicals, and plants will stay green longer when the summer heat arrives.
Remember to condition the plants before it gets hot—if the plants are already suffering in the middle of the summer, the bio-stimulants won’t have enough time to help.
Ensure Air Movement
Air movement is important, especially in the summer. One of the advantages of outdoor hydroponics is the breeze. The air movement helps cool the plant and keep the stomata open.
Stomata are the pores in the leaves that take in carbon dioxide and transpire water vapor and oxygen. As the breeze takes away the water vapor from the leaves, it has a cooling effect on the plant.
Too much wind has the opposite effect—plants close their stomata to conserve water so they don’t dry out too fast. Outdoors, we don’t have much control over the wind, so try to grow in a spot that has good air movement but also provides a protective windbreak.
Planting along a fence row with southern exposure is a good choice. Also, think ahead about what you will do if a major storm approaches. I’ve learned the hard way how important it is to properly stake and trellis my plants and provide a little extra emergency protection.
Protect Against Pests
One downside to growing outdoors is that you often have to share your crops with animals and other pests. The simplest advice is to fence in your garden or grow a few extra plants and hope the critters don’t get too greedy.
If you’re not willing to share, there are other deterrents available at your hydro store such as wolf and coyote urine (I’m serious!) that help keep rabbits and other invaders away. There are also some good natural sprays such as neem oil and insecticidal soaps that help fight bugs and act as natural insect repellents.
But the best defense against pests, particularly sucking insects, is to grow healthy plants. Use full-spectrum, all-purpose fertilizers, and keep the potassium-to-nitrogen ratio high. Too much nitrate nitrogen produces large cells with thin cell walls, making them an easy target for sucking insects and fungi, so don’t over-fertilize.
For even healthier plants, try using a bio-hydroponic fertilizer that combines minerals with organic bio-stimulants. For example, amino acids stimulate the uptake of calcium.
Due to the extra calcium intake, plants grown with amino acids have thicker cell walls and a higher resistance to temperature extremes. The plants will also have a stronger vascular system, allowing them to take up water and minerals more efficiently. (Read more about pests in Maximum Yield's pest control article archives)
It all adds up to nutrient-dense, high-brix plants that have an increased resistance to pests and diseases. If all goes well, sucking insects won’t even recognize the plants as food.
Just wait until you taste what a well-managed outdoor hydroponic garden can produce. Healthier plants mean tasty, nutrient-dense food high in vitamins and minerals.
Colors and aromas are also much richer, and you can literally see the difference in growth from day to day. It’s hard to imagine just how productive an outdoor hydroponic garden can be until you try one for yourself!