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Signify Signs Deal With Agro-Inwest To More Than Double The Size of The world’s Largest LED Horticultural Lighting Project To 68.5 Hectares
Signify Signs Deal With Agro-Inwest To More Than Double The Size of The World's Largest LED Horticultural Lighting Project To 68.5 Hectares
Improvements in tomato production, quality and predictability lead Agro-Inwest to expand its LED installation from 25 to 68.5 hectares – an area equivalent to 100 soccer pitches
- First look inside the world’s largest LED horticulture lighting project in new video
Eindhoven, the Netherlands – Signify (Euronext: LIGHT), the world leader in lighting, today announced that Agro-Inwest, one of Russia’s most modern and rapidly growing companies cultivating fresh vegetables will expand its use of Philips LED lighting for growing tomatoes from its current 25 hectares to 68.5 hectares – an area of greenhouses equivalent to 100 soccer pitches. In 2017, Signify and Agro-Inwest introduced the largest LED horticulture lighting project in the world. The quick payoff and the clearly visible improvements in the crop yield, has led to the company expanding its investment in Philips GreenPower LED toplighting and Philips GreenPower LED interlighting system for its tomato production. The scale of the project illustrates Signify’s leadership in horticultural lighting.
“Demand in Russia for locally grown vegetables and fruits is increasing and Agro-Inwest has responded by scaling production using LED lighting,” said Udo van Slooten, Business Leader Horticulture at Signify. “Our partnership with them has been a big success and we are pleased to continue to help the company to expand its ability to improve crop quality and predictability while reducing its costs.”
Agro-Inwest has already achieved excellent results in the 25 hectares of tomato greenhouses that use Philips LED horticultural lighting. “The Philips LED lighting has reduced energy usage by almost 50% and improved growth predictability, crop appearance, and yield,” said Irina Meshkova, Deputy CEO and General Director, Agro- Inwest. “We are on track to recoup our costs on that project in two to four years, a very attractive return on investment. In addition, Signify has been very accurate in projecting our yields which gives us great confidence in future results. We know LED is the future and Signify has proved a reliable and knowledgeable partner.”
Signify N.V. became the new company name of Philips Lighting N.V., the ultimate parent company of the worldwide group of Philips Lighting companies. The legal name of Philips Eurasia LLC will be changed in the beginning of 2019
Mucci Farms Now Officially "Ohio Grown"
Mucci Farms Now Officially "Ohio Grown"
MAY 31, 2018
Mucci Farms is now officially “Ohio Grown”
May 30th, 2018 Huron, Ohio — Mucci Farms announces that they are officially harvesting out of Phase 1 of their 60-acre greenhouse facility in Huron, Ohio. “After years of hard work and strategic planning, we’re excited to hit another milestone in the Mucci Farms story,” said Bert Mucci, CEO of Mucci Farms. “We’re very appreciative of the strong partnership we’ve developed with The City of Huron, Huron Township, and Erie County officials to get the first 24-acre project off the ground.”
The entire 60-acre facility will be growing primarily Tomatoes On-the-Vine with some snack sized specialty tomatoes. The company also announced that the entire 60-acres will be equipped with supplemental High Powered Sodium (HPS) lighting in order to grow through the winter months allowing them to harvest Ohio grown tomatoes 365 days per year. “We chose tomatoes on-the-vine because of its high demand year round, particularly in the winter months,” said Joe Spano, Vice President of Sales & Marketing. “With grow lights in the entire facility, it was important to have a product that was always in demand.”
Headquartered in Kingsville, Ontario, this is Mucci Farms’ first expansion into the United States, where the majority of their product is distributed. “Expanding into Ohio allows us to reduce the food miles for our US retailers and gives US consumers their own locally grown vegetables,” explained Danny Mucci, President of Mucci International Marketing. “With such a high volume of our product already being shipped to the US, expanding into Huron was strategically done to improve efficiencies with logistics and food safety. Our proximity to market and avoiding a border crossing improves our opportunity to offer consumers with fresh, flavourful products with maximum shelf.” In addition to the remaining 36-acres of greenhouses being built in two remaining phases, Mucci Farms Ohio will include a 272 000 square foot distribution facility that will be operational this summer. Harvesting from the final two phases will begin in the spring of 2019 and 2020.
Owning and Operating over 200-acres of tomato, pepper, cucumber, lettuce and strawberry greenhouses in Kingsville, Ontario, Mucci Farms also markets on behalf of 700-acres across the continent. An active community partner for initiatives focused on health, fitness, and education, the company plans to extend these commitments into Erie County. “We are looking forward to getting familiar with Huron and Erie County over the next several months to find ways that we can be effective members of the community,” said Emily Murracas, Director of Marketing. “Once we are fully operational, we’ll be setting up a grand opening week to welcome city officials, media members, educators and residents of Huron to tour our facility, learn about what we do, and share their ideas on ways we can be helpful to the local community.” The Company is confident that there are a number of inspiring things to come with this investment in Ohio and Mucci Farms looks forward to growing with the City of Huron, Huron Township, and Erie County.
Employment
Additional employment opportunities will become available as the company approaches completion of the distribution facility over the next few weeks. Resumes and cover letters for general warehouse positions are being accepted at CareersOhio@muccifarms.com. Alternatively, available jobs are posted at muccifarms.com/careers.
Brooklyn Grange Announces A New Location — In A Former WWII Shipyard
Inhabitat is thrilled to announce that New York City urban farming group Brooklyn Grange is launching its first location outside the city — at Kearny Point in New Jersey.
Brooklyn Grange Announces A New Location — In A Former WWII Shipyard
- May 15, 2018
by Lacy Cooke
Inhabitat is thrilled to announce that New York City urban farming group Brooklyn Grange is launching its first location outside the city — at Kearny Point in New Jersey. The location holds its own storied past: a former World War I and World War II shipbuilding yard in an industrial area that’s spiraled downhill, Kearny Point is undergoing redevelopment under recycling corporation Hugo Neu. Inhabitat caught up with Brooklyn Grange COO and co-founder Gwen Schantz and Hugo Neu CEO Wendy Neu to learn about the project’s emphasis on not only economic revitalization but also the restoration of local ecology.
At Kearny Point in New Jersey, Brooklyn Grange will help with landscaping, converting just under three acres of sod into a native meadow. In addition, the group will help transform about an acre of former parking lot space into a demonstration garden, complete with a vegetable patch and children’s play area, as well as host plant sales and educational workshops. Although none of these gardens will be on rooftops, Brooklyn Grange does plan to host green roof workshops using a Kearny Point roof.
Related: 6 urban farms feeding the world
Schantz told Inhabitat, “We know what these industrial spaces can become and how they can be reinvented. We’ve seen the evolution of the Navy Yard. When we talked to the people at Hugo Neu about their vision about Kearny Point, we really got it. It resonated with us.”
Neu is one of the people behind that vision. She told Inhabitat that Kearny Point, which is between the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers, was once a main economic driver for the area as “one of the most productive shipbuilding facilities in the world.” During World War II, 35,000 people worked on the 130-acre site. But after the war, the shipbuilding industry died in the United States. Hugo Neu acquired Kearny Point in the 1960s and dismantled ships, but that operation shut down around 1985. Until recently, Kearny Point was an industrial warehouse distribution facility.
“Hurricane Sandy was a defining moment for us because we were approximately four feet underwater. We’d never had any kind of issue with flooding. My late husband and I know climate change is coming and the environment is changing dramatically, and we had to think about what we were going to do with this site,” Neu told Inhabitat.
After her husband passed away suddenly, Neu joined forces with Steve Nislick, former Edison Properties CEO, with the goal of doing “something transformative.” The new vision for Kearny Point includes offices for startups, coworking spaces, and a waterfront opened to the public.
“The opportunity to take a heavy industrial site like this and integrate all the new technology – wind, solar, stormwater – and be able to show we can have people growing businesses without having to harm the environment but also actually improve it at the same time is, to me, a very compelling opportunity,” Neu said. Brooklyn Grange is “an indication of just what the possibilities are.”
The project’s native meadow serves as a prime example. According to Schantz, when people try to convert land into meadows or gardens, they sometimes kill what’s growing there with pesticides. Brooklyn Grange is taking a more natural approach: they’re suffocating grass and enriching the soil with the help of recycled materials, such as leftover cardboard from a nearby shipping company and wood mulch from a local tree service, both of which the urban farming group inoculated with blue oyster mushrooms. Once this process is complete, they’ll plant native flowers and grasses.
“Our approach is, let’s take this strip of land which has had a rough history along a railroad track, it has not been loved the way it could be, and give it a new lease on life and make it a place where insects and birds can feed and nest, and restore it the way it might have looked before there was a shipyard here,” said Schantz.
How will Kearny Point handle natural disasters in the future? Neu said that not only are they raising the site up two feet, they’re creating at least 25 acres of open space and putting in bioswales to boost the site’s resiliency.
“We’ll have underground parking that will serve as reservoirs for water that comes onto the site. We’ll remove as many impervious surfaces as possible, which is huge in terms of the amount that gets discharged into the Hackensack, and we’re going to do everything to improve the quality of what gets discharged,” said Neu. “I want to minimize our impact as much as possible. We have to be able to figure out how to have people prosper without destroying the environment and further degrading it.”
Brooklyn Grange’s first plant sale will be Sunday, May 20, from 10 a.m.to 4 p.m. “We’re really excited to be reaching out to our neighbors across the river,” Schantz said. “We know there’s already a culture of gardening here in the Garden State, and so we’re excited to bring some of our urban farming techniques and our general mindset of sustainable, organic gardening to the local community and hopefully get people excited about growing their own food.”
+ Brooklyn Grange + Hugo Neu + Kearny Point
Images courtesy of Valery Rizzo
under Gardening and Plants, New Jersey, News, Recycled Materials, Urban Farming
Gotham Greens Grows Into Metro Baltimore
STATE-OF-URBAN-AG: This is an artist concept of Gotham Greens rooftop greenhouse facility in the Queens, N.Y. The Baltimore system won’t be a rooftop design. Gotham Greens
Gotham Greens Grows Into Metro Baltimore
Brooklyn, N.Y., ag tech startup expands its urban greenhouse system to Maryland.
John Vogel | May 15, 2018
If your mental image of urban agriculture is of a food plot or garden between city buildings, you won’t recognize Gotham Greens, the high-tech agribusiness model now coming to metro Baltimore, Md. This rapidly growing ag tech startup, headquartered in Brooklyn, N.Y., will open its fifth state-of-the-art hydroponic greenhouse at an old steel mill site at Sparrows Point in southeast Baltimore.
The initial 100,000-square-foot greenhouse facility is expected to bring fresh branded competition to produce growers serving the Mid-Atlantic region by early 2019. The deal was announced recently by Tradepoint Atlantic, which operates the port logistical center. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan noted that Tradepoint's location provides a competitive advantage for fresh food businesses to reach a significant Mid-Atlantic customer base.
Gotham Greens’ expansion to Baltimore makes it the third city in its network of high-tech urban greenhouses, after New York and Chicago. The facility will create more than 60 full-time jobs and bring a reliable, year-round, local supply of fresh produce to serve retail, restaurant and foodservice customers throughout the Mid-Atlantic, says Viraj Puri, the company’s CEO, and co-founder. The company, reportedly, has an additional 500,000 square feet of greenhouse under development in four U.S. states.
The system
Up to this point, Gotham Greens main production menu has been lettuce varieties, arugula, basil and vine-ripened cherry tomatoes. The climate-controlled farm will be powered by 100% renewable electricity and recycled irrigation water.
Puri says that the proprietary methods yield more than 30 times that of conventional farms, with higher levels of food safety and environmental sustainability. Gotham’s other greenhouses feature solar photovoltaic panels, LED lighting, passive ventilation and thermal curtains.
Gotham’s flagship greenhouse, built in Brooklyn in 2011, was the first commercial-scale urban greenhouse of its kind in the country. After opening new locations in New York, the company expanded to Chicago in 2015 by building the world’s largest rooftop farm. Once the Baltimore facility opens, Gotham Greens will own and operate 500,000 square-feet of advanced greenhouses across eight facilities in five states.
“We’re honored and humbled to join the rich heritage of Maryland farmers, growers and food producers,” Puri says. “Urban agriculture, at its core, is about reconnecting with the community through food, jobs, and economic development. To that end, we’ve found a great partner and are proud to be part of the American industrial turnaround story taking place at Tradepoint Atlantic.”
Nine of America’s Largest Urban Farms
Nine of America’s Largest Urban Farms
April 24, 2018 | Trish Popovitch
The American urban farm comes in many guises but come it does. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 800 million people worldwide practice urban agriculture. That accounts for between 15 to 20 percent of the world’s food supply. As urban ag continues to build momentum across all 50 states, the influence and scope of the urban farm is growing. Most of us think of less than a couple of acres when we think urban farm, yet urban farms are getting bigger. And some are getting really big. You know, given that whole city space constraint thing. Here are just nine of America’s larger city-based farming outfits (listed alphabetically).
1. Alemany Farm (San Francisco, CA – 4.5 Acres)
Although it has enjoyed several incarnations in its time, Alemany Farm of San Francisco was founded in 1995 when a youth group turned an urban lot into a community garden. Since then, the site has grown (and changed its name a few times) and become a hub for community education on growing your own food. The farm produced and distributed 20,000 pounds of food in 2016, all of which was given away for free to area residents. Even though the farm has enjoyed a 20 year life, 2017 will be the first year with paid staff.
2. D-Town Farm (Detroit, Michigan – 7 Acres)
In Detroit’s River Rouge Park lies D-Town, the Motor City’s largest urban farm. Here, using four hoop houses and row beds, the staff and volunteers grow and harvest seasonal vegetables using traditional methods. The farm began as a ¼ acre lot back in 2006 and has grown through cooperation and community effort. The farm enjoys a complex irrigation system that involves underground piping and hydrants. Funded by grant money and enjoying a 10 year lease from the city, D-Town Farm offers a farm stand, CSA and educational programming to the local community.
3. Metro Atlanta Urban Farm (Atlanta, Georgia – 5 Acres)
Metro Atlanta Urban Farm, in Atlanta, Georgia exists on donations and grant money alone as it tries to improve access to local food for local residents. Making the most of seasonal vegetables and multiple opportunities to harvest, Metro offers cool and warm weather crops. The farm is best known for its tomatoes and okra. Located on a five acre lot in College Park, food desert eradication is the focus of this urban nonprofit. The farm is located on a traditional farming plot and still has the original farmhouse from the 1880s.
4. Ohio City Farm (Cleveland, Ohio – 6 Acres)
A collaborative effort, Ohio City Farm is compromised of six acres of fertile land with five organizations sponsoring five different projects. Working cooperatively, the farm produces food for its weekly farm stand that takes place at Cleveland’s Riverview site providing fresh food access to urban residents and city workers. The farm also provides several area restaurants with produce such as beets, garlic, peppers, leafy greens and tomatoes. Part of the City Farm team is the organization Refugee Response. They help refugees farm the land, maintaining their own farming traditions while sharing their cultural produce with their new neighbors. Cultivating 150 types of vegetables annually, Ohio City Farm is growing economically and expanding its tenancies as it becomes a permanent part of the cityscape.
5. Rainier Beach Urban Farm (Seattle, Washington – 8 Acres)
A joint endeavor between the city’s parks department, Tilth Alliance and the Friends of Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetlands, Rainier Beach Urban Farm was founded in 2010 as Seattle’s first private farm on public land. Besides growing fruit and produce for area residents in greenhouses and ground plots, the folks at Rainier Urban Farm work to restore the wetlands habitat that just happens to run right through the center of the farm’s property. 2017 sees new programming facilities and access improvement to the farm and wetlands as the partners work together to use Seattle’s larger urban farm as a hub for sustainable education.
6. Real Food Farm (Baltimore, Maryland – 8 Acres)
Founded in 2009, Real Food Farm is a Baltimore non-profit operating on eight acres of city parkland (six contiguous with an additional two-acre site added in 2014). A program of the larger Civic Works organization, the team uses their hoop houses of fruit, vegetables and herbs to keep costs low while working towards a more sustainable local economy. They have produced 60,000 lbs of food and educated over 3000 people. Real Food Farm offers both a CSA and a mobile farmers’ market increasing access for local residents. Among their many programs, gardens and activities, the farmhouses a large gas heated greenhouse that is shared with the other members of the Farm Alliance of Baltimore City.
7. Springdale Farm (Austin, Texas – 4.83 Acres)
Glen and Paula Foore founded Springdale Farm in 2009 and grow 75 different types of fruits and vegetables using traditional methods. Comprised of 4.83 acres in East Austin, Springdale is a community hub for locavores. Like most urban farms, work is twofold: production and education. Originally, the property operated as a landscaping business and their former business employees simply transitioned to the new business. The Foores employ seven longtime employees. The farm hosts an annual tomato dinner and has won Edible Communities’ Local Hero award four times. Springdale Farm’s nonprofit arm Springdale Center is an educational program center for students to promote sustainable education and awareness.
8. Skarsgard Farms (Albuquerque, New Mexico – 40 Acres)
Skarsgard Farms was founded by Monte Skarsgard in 2003. Coming from a century old tradition of family farming, he knew how to put the river valley soil and water to best use. Skarsgard Farms offers a CSA and mobile delivery service, partnering with area businesses to increase product availability to their customers. With six greenhouses and a hydroponic operation, Skarsgard grows throughout the year producing seasonal warm and cold weather crops. The farm operates all its sales online and offers value-added hard cider from its apple crop.
9. Sunspot Urban Farm (Fort Collins, Colorado – 4.5 Acres)
Founded in 2008 by Amy Yackel and Rod Adams, Sunspot Urban is a neighbor friendly operation focused on building urban soil. They offer a farm share style CSA with a day’s work exchanged for a week of freshly harvested produce. Utilizing high tunnels, the couple extend the Colorado growing season while offering locals farm tours and workshops. The farm utilizes a ‘carbon farming’ method with the main goal being to create a carbon regenerative farm focused on growing nutrient rich vegetables. The couple appears to be succeeding, growing their CSA customers and finding time to conduct compost research for the USDA in between planting and harvesting the rows.
The Future of Hydroponics In Indonesia
The Future of Hydroponics In Indonesia
Nudira Fresh Farm: growing high-tech in the tropics
"I believe since 20 years ago that hydroponic and greenhouse technology is one of the answers to provide solutions to the constraints faced by vegetable agriculture in Indonesia." Speaking is Edi Sugiyanto. He is a commercial hydroponic grower, well experienced in Indonesia, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and currently part of the team operating a high tech farm in Indonesia: Nudira Fresh.
Edi believes in the future, the role of hydroponic farmers in Indonesia would be better with the construction of modern Greenhouse agriculture and Hydroponics technology. "There are many obstacles faced by farmers in the field, to maintain the vegetables production remains high and stable, whether it is damage caused by rain water and the diseases. Elsewhere, rainy season is highly anticipated by most farmers especially in rainfed field."
The greenhouse project Edi participates in is the greenhouse built in Indonesia with full automatic control of temperature regulation, humidity and irrigation system. "The first stage we plant cherry tomatoes and for the next greenhouse we will plant lettuce, seed from Rijk Zwaan and growing media rockwool from Grodan."
Edi Sugiyanto, Nudira Fresh Farm, and Agrifam PT, in cooperation with iGrow investors, will continue to build the expansion of modern greenhouses in Indonesia, with hydroponics technology, as a commercial farm but also as a place to train the generation of modern agriculture in Indonesia. "Hydroponics are the future. Any plant, anywhere and anytime."
For more information:
Edi Sugiyanto
Publication date: 5/11/2018
Local Entrepreneurs Bring Farming To The City With Urban Greens
Local Entrepreneurs Bring Farming To The City With Urban Greens
Hydroponic farm sells crops to co-op, restaurants
IOWA CITY — From the outside, the house at 1135 E. College St. in Iowa City does not appear to be a farm.
In their basement, entrepreneurs Chad Treloar and Ted Myers grow arugula, sunflowers, sweet corn, cilantro, broccoli, lettuce and several other varieties of baby green vegetables.
The co-owners of Urban Greens sell their crops — many of them grown year-round in a hydroponic greenhouse system — to New Pioneer Food Co-op, local restaurants and at the Iowa City Farmers Market.
Various greens are grown under full spectrum LED lights in a hydroponic system at Urban Greens in Iowa City on Wednesday, May. 9, 2018. (Stephen Mally/The Gazette)
Baby greens are small, nutrient-packed produce that can be used as an alternative to lettuce on sandwiches and burgers, blended into smoothies or included in tossed salads. They are harvested about three weeks after they germinate, well before they become mature plants.
“We started in March of 2017 with a small room in the basement,” Myers recalled. ”The walls were lined and we did baby greens. Then we dug up the backyard and planted baby greens outdoors.”
Myers said the decision to grow baby greens year-round meant expanding the growing space in the basement by taking down a concrete block wall.
“We’ve had a few years’ experience with hydroponics and we designed a system — making about 1,000 mistakes along the way,” he said. “Now, we feel like we have it to where we are in full production, which is conveniently when we are able to work outdoors again.”
Myers and Treloar purchased their hydroponic growing channels and related supplies from FarmTek in Dyersville. They buy their seeds in 10-pound and 25-pound bags from Johnny’s Seeds in Maine and Mountain Valley Seed in Utah.
Hydroponic growing uses burlap as a growing medium, removing the need for soil and eliminating soil-borne diseases and pests, weeds and the use of herbicides and pesticides.
A water tank contains all the nutrients required to grow the baby greens. The channels are linked to the water tank with tubing, which carries the water to the plants and the channels drain the excess water.
LED lighting and fans are used to create and maintain the proper indoor growing environment. All the compost from the indoor production is saved and used in the outdoor plots of lettuce and other produce.
Ted Myers, co-founder, plants salanova lettuce in beds outside at Urban Greens in Iowa City on Wednesday, May. 9, 2018. (Stephen Mally/The Gazette)
Urban Greens’ base baby greens product is what Myers and Treloar call their “superfood mix.”
“We take the baby greens of broccoli, kale, bok choy, cabbage, radish and some garnet mustard. We mix that all together to create something that has a lot of nutrients, color and a lot of flavor,” Myers said.
“We are adding more exotic greens to that, like arugula, for off shoots like a bold and spicy mix. There are a few different routes that we can take.”
Myers and Treloar are trying to minimize the time before harvest with different lighting and watering techniques to adjust the growing climate,
Treloar said the challenge with hydroponics system and the limited growing space is to make the process as efficient as possible.
“By removing soil from the equation, you are developing a growing environment where you can maximize the rates of growth, keep the products cleaner, and it requires less processing as you harvest it,” he said. “These types of efficiencies are important when it is reflected in pricing. We want to compete in pricing with massive farms that produce lettuce and greens in California that are shipped here.”
Myers said Urban Greens’ existing operation is a prototype that he and Treloar want to replicate to expand production. They plan to add a detached garage at the back of their location and use it to double their hydroponic year-round indoor production.
“Once we have maximized indoor and outdoor production on this property, we are looking to purchase another property with a house in Iowa City,” Myers said. “We want to acquire other properties around the center of the city close to delivery points so we can cut down on transportation costs.”
The additional properties also will enable Urban Greens to provide room and board to employees who will manage the household and also keep up with operations, Myers said.
“That house manager could also be the rental property manager,” he said. “Each property could generate revenue from the (growing) operation as well as the renters.”
Treloar said he and Myers believe the food system of the future will involve consumers having a direct relationship with the food that they eat day to day.
“It seems like the most realistic way to do that is incorporate growing in or near your living space,” he said. “That might involve space that is wasted like a storage room or your backyard, which you spend time mowing.
“It’s not just a business model, but a sustainable idea and a lifestyle model.”
Myers and Treloar hope to purchase similar properties in larger cities, adding more production and expanding Urban Greens’ employment and client base.
MotorLeaf: The Farming AI Which Helps Boost Modern Indoor Farms
MotorLeaf: The Farming AI Which Helps Boost Modern Indoor Farms
from RESET
Published on 23 May 2018
MotorLeaf introduces a green-fingered AI which can help indoor farms match the growing food demands of the future.
The Agronomist AI uses a range of wirelessly connected devices to monitor crops.
The recent expansion of agricultural tech, combined with emerging food security concerns, has led to the development of modern agricultural practices which seem a million miles away from the rolling green fields and romanticised ideas of farming yore.
For example, we recently reported on AeroFarms, a US-based company exploring the concept of urban vertical farming, while elsewhere, technological greenhouses can utilize new systems to greatly reduce water consumption without compromising on yield. Indeed, in many cases, the yield is drastically increased.
MotorLeaf is the latest company to find a role in this new market. The artificial intelligence developer has created a new AI which can help urban and indoor growers to monitor their crops, and predict issues in real time.
Their Agronomist AI uses data-driven machine-based learning to provide indoor farms with a comprehensive suite of insights, whether relating to potential yield or even predicting disease. Put all together, this data can help reduce waste and crop failure - something which will only become more important as more stress is put on the agricultural sector by population growth and climate change induced weather patterns.
Many of Agronomist’s services can be used individually or combined together with the MotorLeaf HEART system to operate as a larger AI manager of an indoor farm or greenhouse. Every four seconds, MotorLeaf’s AI collects data from a collection of wirelessly connected devices which can provide information on factors such as light spectrum, light intensity, CO2, humidity, air temperature, water usage and chemical makeup.
Recent trials conducted in California led to a fifty percent reduction in yield prediction errors of tomatoes, and with recently secured funding, they are seeking to expand the product to different crops and scales.
Can AI Be Environmental?
Currently, the system is mostly being used in hi-tech, comparatively low-yield indoor farms in developed nations - and is it likely to remain that way for some time. Furthermore, the current goal of MotorLeaf appears to be making these ventures more profitable and cost-effective, and less concerned with environmental protection - although the two are not mutually exclusive.
Despite this, technology such as the Agromost.ai or similar could also have major implications for farms and greenhouses in developing nations. Although the current expense and technical know-how required to operate such software may be beyond most farmers in the Global South, the ability to predict disaster and better monitor the conditions of your crops could become an invaluable tool in the fight against famines, crop failure, and poor weather conditions.
If AI is to become a tool of future, it should also be used broadly to help those most in need of its utility. AI that remains the sole possession of developed nations is likely only to exacerbate inequalities and economic gulfs between states. However, as AI becomes more widespread, and the tech it relies on cheaper and more available, it could be an important player in supporting an agricultural sector that can feed the entire world. Additionally, much else remains to be debated about AI from a social standpoint, including its potential impact on employment, not only in manufacturing but in a range of sectors and roles.
Urban Farmer Jon Walsh Finds Fertile Ground In Tokyo
Jon Walsh stands in a community garden. Photo: Steve Morin
Urban Farmer Jon Walsh Finds Fertile Ground In Tokyo
May 20, 2018
By Joan Bailey TOKYO
Seven years ago, Jon Walsh watched as earthquakes shook his home country of New Zealand and his current home in Japan. Like many, his mind turned to disaster-preparedness; however, his train of thought took a different track: food security.
He planted a garden and found the 6 x 1-meter space produced more than his family could eat. Inspired, Jon decided to add urban farming workshops and garden creation to the existing menu of services offered by Business Grow, his company that specializes in writing, editing, and marketing services. Japan Today talked with Jon to learn more about urban farming and what his vision is for the future of it in Tokyo and beyond.
How would you describe your work as an urban farmer?
My objective is to make urban farming sexy – something that people don’t necessarily think they should do, but something they want to start because it is attractive and they understand the benefits of it. My underlying goal is to encourage the younger generation to get into urban farming because let’s face it, they are the future.
I focus on showing people how to grow healthy food – minus chemicals – in the city, and recycling where possible. I don’t just grow food; I provide urban farming training for individuals, families, students, companies, universities, such as Lakeland College, and organizations like Social Innovation Japan. The trainings are also supported by consulting services and an expanding range of resources that includes articles, how-to guides, lesson materials and self-learning packs. These all help people learn and pass on key food growing skills.
I strongly hope my work inspires people to start growing food in ways that can make it a viable livelihood." Photo: Steve Morin
"How does urban farming fit with the concept of sustainability?
I see urban farming as crucial in the overall picture of global sustainability. If done correctly (i.e. without chemicals), it only produces good: good food, strengthened communities, better personal and environmental health, and self-sufficiency. Plus, if there’s a natural disaster, that homegrown food could save our lives.
Urban farming seems new to many people not because these skills were "lost," but because they were never taught them in the first place. This is a big deal because food means life. Taking control of our food supply allows us to take control of our health because so much of the food currently consumed is produced in factories and laced with chemicals.
You have many different projects underway – rooftop gardens at hotels and offices, school gardens and food-focused CSR programs, which donate some of the harvest to food banks. Where do you see the greatest potential?
Hotel and office gardens. Landing the Grand Hyatt Tokyo organic garden project was a huge milestone. As a first garden installation project, it was a significant confidence booster and triggered a lot of interest.
Office gardens have a different dynamic from school or home gardens and present a unique challenge. My plan this year is to encourage and show office staff in large office buildings how to set up rooftop gardens. Over time, each company would have their own corporate garden where staff would visit during lunch breaks and after work to tend and grow food.
The space would become a fragrant, colorful garden. Staff from different offices would swap gardening tips and tools, share food and create bonds. At the end of the evening, workers would go home with vegetables they grew, solid evidence of the success of a true urban farming project.
Jon Walsh gives a seminar at Lakeland College. Photo: Daniel Calvert
Jon Walsh conducts an event at Social Innovation Japan. Photo: Social Innovation Japan
What effect do you think your work could have on farming as a livelihood in the city?
I strongly hope my work inspires people to start growing food in ways that can make it a viable livelihood. Space is, of course, a key factor as it determines yield. I am hoping that, particularly here in Japan, the falling population will free up more land in towns and cities that could be turned into community gardens. Coupled with some of the stunningly creative ideas for vertical and indoor farming out there, this would also enable these places to become more self-sustaining.
What is your vision for the future of food and Business Grow?
I would love to run this type of business in my home city of Auckland. In many suburbs, almost every house has a lawn but not every house has a garden. That means every street, as well as offices, hotels, hospitals and shops with safe rooftops and surrounding spare space would be an opportunity to grow a business like this.
I also want to see fresh, free, healthy food growing on every street that anyone walking by can pick. I want to see schools teaching comprehensive food growing programs, and companies receiving subsidies and tax deductions if they run their staff through urban farming programs. I would like people to realize that growing food is one of the most positive and impacting things we can do to improve our world, and it starts with the food we decide to put on our plates.
The bottom line is that our food should be nurturing, strengthening and healing us. Every step in the process of sharing the importance of producing and sharing real food is important, because small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.
- EXTERNAL LINK
- http://www.businessgrow.net/
© Japan Today
Microgreens With Mega Nutrients
Microgreens With Mega Nutrients
May 22, 2018
Next time you're in the grocery aisle, you might want to think about what microgreens you'll want to take home with you. Or you're going to begin growing your own microgreens and want to know which direction to take. Either way, we promise not to leave you hanging. Here are 6 microgreens that have a bunch of nutrients in them.
Arugula
This microgreen contains glucosinolates (GSLs), ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and phenols that are believed to help fend off toxins and stave off environmental stress, says Monique Richard, RD, an adjunct professor of nutrition at East Tennessee State University. “Adding the peppery spice of arugula to sandwiches, salads, smoothies or as a colorful and edible garnish can be tasty and beneficial to your health,” she says.
Basil
The shoots of this tasty herb, that’s perfect in pasta or salads, have plenty of
health benefits. “Basil is rich in polyphenols that drive gut health and general good health by reducing oxidation and inflammation,” says Barry Sears, Ph.D., a leading research scientist in the field of inflammation.
Kale
Considered the new superfood, kale is known to be a vitamin C powerhouse. “If massaged with some tahini, lemon juice, dried fruit, apple cider vinegar and apples, it can be a satisfying lunch and the bitterness will subside,” Richard says.
Sunflower shoots
Known for providing essential amino acids, crunchy sprouted sunflower greens contain high levels of folate, B complex vitamins and vitamins C, E and selenium. When using them in a salad, pair them with a creamy vinaigrette.
Radish
With their signature peppery taste, radish microgreens contain beneficial amounts of folate and B6 and make a delightful finisher to a salad composed of watermelon and avocado.
Chia
These shoots offer endless health benefits. “Chia is an ideal addition to your diet thanks to their healthy unsaturated fats, fiber and satiety from the protein,” Richard says.
These microgreens are worth the time. We promise not to let you astray!
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The Big Plans of Barry Benepe
Over the course of his long career, Saugerties’ Barry Benepe has had a beneficial impact on the quality of life in our cities and towns. His greatest contribution is perhaps the founding, with colleague Bob Lewis, of Greenmarket, the network of New York City farmers’ markets that began in 1976.
The Big Plans of Barry Benepe
Barry Benepe (photo by Dion Ogust)
Over the course of his long career, Saugerties’ Barry Benepe has had a beneficial impact on the quality of life in our cities and towns. His greatest contribution is perhaps the founding, with colleague Bob Lewis, of Greenmarket, the network of New York City farmers’ markets that began in 1976. The rest is history: New York City now has 70 market days – some locations, such as Union Square, have two or more markets a week – and the trend has spread to cities and towns all over America.
Benepe, who looks amazingly fit for age 89 – he still climbs the stairs to his fourth-floor walk-up apartment in Greenwich Village – earned degrees from Williams College and MIT, with a stint at Cooper Union in between. He is a licensed architect who worked at several architectural and planning firms starting in the 1950s. In the early 1960s, he was a planner in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, designing and overseeing the engineering of a series of pedestrian walkways and public squares; it was a radical departure from the job he was hired to do – design new highways and malls – but won the support of the municipality.
Back in America, he did design and planning work for New York City’s urban renewal agency, creating plans for the Upper West Side. By then, planning had evolved from Robert Moses’ brutal slum clearance, and the projects that Benepe worked on sought to rehabilitate existing buildings for low-income housing and preserve others, as well as tear down some tenement buildings on the basis of their poor design. He created a design that would integrate the American Museum of Natural History and other institutions into the neighborhood and streetscape, made renderings of multifunctional street amenities and benches and designed ways to improve that area’s walkability. While some of his plans sat on the shelf (one of the frustrations of the municipal planner is that he or she lacks the political clout and administrative tools to get the job done), decades later certain elements became reality.
In 1968, Benepe brought his planning expertise to Newburgh, when he was hired as the city’s first planner. He discovered that the Newburgh Urban Renewal Agency was tearing down chunks of the early-19th-century streets that had attracted him to the city in the first place. He fought for plans that would harmonize with the existing neighborhood and save rather than destroy the historic buildings. He was successful in proposing a mixed-income housing project and spearheaded the creation of the East End Historic District, which stopped the bulldozers and saved many buildings of historic significance, such as the Dutch Reformed Church, the County Courthouse and several homes along Grand and Montgomery Streets.
Benepe’s passion for historic preservation manifested in two books: Early Architecture in Ulster County, commissioned by the Junior League of Kingston, and Newburgh Revealed, a survey of outstanding Victorian architecture, including buildings that had been torn down by urban renewal, with photographs by John Bayley and Benepe and text by Arthur Channing Downs, Jr. and Benepe.
In the late 1970s, he started spending time in Woodstock and had a hand in creating its first zoning map, which incorporated contour lines, floodplains and water bodies. It was at this time that he hired Bob Lewis to work at his planning firm. The two men began talking about how to save the farmland that was vanishing around them: a conversation that ultimately led to the founding of Greenmarket in New York City.
Today, Benepe and his wife, Judith Spektor, divide their time between their home in Greenwich Village, which he has had for decades, and their Saugerties farmhouse, bought in 1983. Married three times (Benepe notes that the twists and turns of his career were in some instances determined by his relationships), he has five children. His son Adrian followed in his father’s footsteps, serving as New York City’s parks commissioner for eleven years (currently he is senior vice president and director of city parkland for the Trust for Public Land). Benepe remains active in local planning efforts, serving as vice-chair of Saugerties’ Comprehensive Planning Committee and a member of its Historic Preservation Commission. He is also a founder and active organizer of the Saugerties Farmers’ Market. Almanac Weekly’s Lynn Woods recently interviewed Benepe.
You were born in 1928 and grew up in Gramercy Park. What did your parents do, and what were your childhood and student years like?
My mother was an artist who did fashion illustration, and my father had an embroidered-linen business on Madison Square. His company also imported Madeira wine from Portugal. I went to Friends’ Seminary, walking to school through a neighborhood dating from the mid-19th century: an exposure that probably explains why I have always been attracted to older parts of the city. I later went to St. Andrew’s, a boarding school in Delaware, then attended Williams College, where I initially majored in Economics and Spanish because I thought I would go into my father’s business. I took an art class in my junior year, which got me interested in European culture, and switched my major to Art History.
My dad paid for me to spend the summer in Europe; I traveled around on a bike with a roommate, staying in hostels. The influence was pretty profound: Amiens Cathedral impressed me, because even though it was so massive, the columns met the floor on a human scale. On a later trip, I saw Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp Chapel, which is extraordinary.
I entered a painting and a mixed-media piece into a student art show in my senior year, and both won First Prizes. I did stage design for the theater and worked on the class musical with Stephen Sondheim, who was a fellow student. After graduating from Williams, I went to Cooper Union. My father was really encouraging: When I was a child, he’d always take me to his office on Saturday and give me art materials. He had a resident artist who designed his printed cottons, and he had him teach me art. My mother gave me all her drawing materials and was a big influence also. I had an older brother who did go into the family business, so I was off the hook.
You were first exposed to planning principles at Cooper Union.
One of the basic courses I took at Cooper was Architectural Rendering, taught by Robert Stein, who was a member of the International Congresses for Modern Architecture, an interdisciplinary group of architects and artists who were following Le Corbusier. We would meet in the evenings at his office and discuss planning principles. I was part of a team project in which we had to design an outdoor museum. My task was to draw the site plan and coordinate the location of the buildings; even then I was doing planning, though architecture was the focus.
Stein talked about how to define communities in terms of their population. Planning intrigued me because it involved people and real life. Space can have a profound emotional impact, even if it’s not occupied. There’s a highrise by Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill in Montparnasse, in Paris, that works with classical forms in a modern way. The building rises on classical columns and the scale is massive, but at the bottom of the building, people are having a good time running around. It works in a human way. Whereas the Barbican Center, in London, is dead.
You made a significant art purchase when you were at Cooper Union.
One of my teachers told me about a show at the Sidney Janis Gallery, so I went. The artist was Willem de Kooning, and I wanted to buy a small pastel priced at $350, entitled Woman. I only had $200 in my bank account, so Sidney said I could have it for that. I learned later I was the only buyer except for the Museum of Modern Art. De Kooning’s studio was in back of my loft, which was on the top floor and had a skylight; I never met him, but would see him painting. I later sold the pastel for $5,000. Recently it was featured on the cover of a brochure for an auction at Sotheby’s and was sold for $3.2 million.
What brought you to MIT? Any interesting summer jobs during this time?
One of my teachers suggested I apply to MIT, so I left Cooper after my second year (and never consulted my father; he was furious). I went to Morristown, New Jersey one summer to work on a housing project designed by Abraham Geller, who studied under Marcel Breuer. I was impressed with his approach: His ranch-style houses had low shed or peaked roofs and were connected to the garage or a carport with a breezeway, and he varied the texture of the board exteriors, which were vertical and horizontal, and painted them in earth colors. He also sited the houses so they fitted the land well. Part of my job was shaping the land, which I’d rake, like Rodin doing a sculpture.
One of the lecturers at MIT was Buckminster Fuller, and Carl Koch was a teacher of Architecture who designed a housing project in which the houses had a glass gable end, from the peak to the ground, outside of Cambridge. I took a course in Planning and left with a degree in Architecture, graduating in 1955.
What were some aspects of your plans for the Upper West Side?
The plan that encompassed West 86th, Central Park West, West 96th and Columbus Avenue had a three-pronged approach based on conservation, especially along Central Park West, rehabbing the brownstones on the side streets and redevelopment of Columbus Avenue. We tried to convert rooming houses into single-family homes. I was doing propaganda for urban renewal – making before-and-after renderings that showed a room with a single lightbulb, which after rehab had a modern elegant bedroom with good daylight.
Some of the tenements were bought by the New York City Housing Authority and converted into apartments, which was the most successful low-income housing because it was integrated into the existing housing. I made models of high-rises with glass fronts that weren’t great. We created pedestrian walkways that were set back 100 feet from the avenue, which didn’t make sense; later we refocused the sidewalk back to the avenue, to emphasize the traditional retail component. I also had open spaces created mid-block between the sides of the buildings. It didn’t happen in this project, but the concept has been adopted in the last 30 years.
What are your ideas for affordable housing?
When I was in Newburgh in 1968, I designed a housing project for single-person houses. I called them patio houses, since each had a veranda. The problem with public housing is the design is separate from the city, and there’s no frontage on the street. The developers didn’t create any ground-floor use, where people could sit outside and have a barbecue.
What was different about your experience in England?
Newcastle-upon-Tyne was unique because enormous numbers of people walked to the center or took buses. We linked the walkways to the center, the heartblood of the city; and we valued the historic architecture, including stairs that went down to the waterfront. All that history was still there. In England they take planning seriously; here it’s seen as advisory, with developers making the determination.
How did you learn about Newburgh?
I read about Newburgh in The New York Times and was intrigued by the photos of cobblestone streets; it was a hotbed of Romantic 19th-century architecture. I was hired by the city manager as the first city planner. John Stillman, who came from a lot of money – his family had given money for Palisades Park – was the director of urban renewal. He’d been hired through the Democrats and was a friend of Hubert Humphrey.
I learned about the Hudson River School of painting and landscape architecture and how that tradition was represented in Newburgh, and I found out on the job that it was being destroyed. I went into the houses, which were pretty much owned by black people, such as the Samuel Hodge funeral home on Montgomery, designed by Calvert Vaux for W. E. Warren in 1857. It was described by professor George Tatum as “the most outstanding of Vaux’s residential designs in the United States.” These people were middle-class black families who had moved to Newburgh early on, and the owners were proud of their homes. There were still remnants of professionalism and a solid middle-class community, but people were moving out to the Town of New Windsor.
What were some of your ideas?
Part of Colden Street had been torn down when I got there, and I brought in the developers Bogdanoff and Tangredi, who worked in Westchester, to show how the waterfront could be built. The city manager was very supportive and arranged a meeting with mayor George McNeally. After McNeally refused to meet with the developers, they concluded, “We know when we’re not wanted.”
I designed Palatine Square, a public space fronting the monumental 1835 Dutch Reformed Church. My design served to integrate the historic structure with three existing buildings around a square with a view of the Hudson; parking was provided underground. Unfortunately, it was never built. [Instead, the new public library was constructed with little regard for the adjacent church, which is now in a desperate state of neglect and serves as a backdrop for parked cars.]
Rosen Associates had produced a plan in 1966 that would have leveled the entire East End, which Stillman supported. After a public hearing at which I spoke about the value of 33 historic buildings slated for demolition, Stillman said, essentially, “Drop dead.” The Federal Housing Act had just been amended to require urban renewal plans to take into account historic resources, which the Rosen plan did not do. One of the Republican members of the City Council supported my plan for the East End, because retaining the buildings meant there would be less pressure to relocate people.
Was racism a factor in making these decisions?
In 1970 I was living on Grand Street, and an interracial couple wanted to get married in a public park, where there was a natural amphitheater of evergreens. They had a permit, but at the last minute the city prevented them from having the wedding. I said, “You can have it on my lawn,” which they did. I had a sailboat, and I later heard from the head of the Planning Board, who was a member of the Yacht Club, something disturbing. A county legislator, who was head of the Yacht Club, had told the members, “Benepe wanted to become a member of the Yacht Club, but I told him I didn’t want him or his nigger friends here.”
Wow, that’s terrible. And this was in the early 1970s. Did anything positive come out of your plans?
Mario Cuomo was wrong when he championed the people in Queens who didn’t want low-income housing in Forest Hills Gardens. I proposed that the Lake Street District low-income project in Newburgh planned for the West Side of the city include middle-class housing and shopping. Mid-Hudson Patterns for Progress enlarged my project to three times the size and made it work. The state wanted to reroute a proposed arterial to the west, but I opposed that, and lobbied to keep Route 9W as an avenue and create a greenway that links to the waterfront.
After your job was eliminated by the new city manager, you didn’t go away.
With others, I started the Greater Newburgh Arts Council to carry through a plan for the East End Historic District. We produced an alternate plan entitled Newburgh Revealed, which was funded by the National Trust and New York Council of the Arts. Jack Present, who took over from Stillman, wanted to tear down the Dutch Reformed Church. That plan led to the creation of the Historic District by the State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, one of the earliest state-designated Historic Districts.
You and Bob Lewis had a great idea: starting urban farmers’ markets as a way to keep local farms in business. How did you actually make it happen?
We had a model in Syracuse, which we read about in The New York Times. I got in touch with Susan Snook, director of the Syracuse Chamber of Commerce, who started the market, and found it was very successful. We went to foundations to fund a feasibility study and presented a proposal to the Council of the Environment of New York City, a nonprofit run by city agencies and businesses. I became their consultant and the head of the newly formed Greenmarket. My role was to raise money to pay my salary.
An employee of the Kaplan Foundation suggested using a lot near her house, on 59th Street and Second Avenue, which was used by the police to park their cars; I had to meet with a lot of people to make this happen. The market opened in 1976, and the locale was ideal because Bloomingdale’s and Alexander’s department stores were a block away. I was in charge of publicity, sending out news releases, since there was no money for ads. The TV networks covered the story as a wrap-up on the weekend news. The word was out big-time.
The next year two additional markets opened in the city, including one at Union Square. The park was dying on its feet; drug traffic had taken over, and the adjoining stores were closing. After seeing the market at 59th Street, the head of the Manhattan Planning Office asked if we could open a market at the Square as a way to help save the neighborhood. I said, “Sure, if you can get the required permits from the Traffic and Highway Departments.” We got them, and the first few years were dismal.
But people began writing about us. Bob also opened a market in Harlem, partnering with Harlem Teams for Self-Help, and got writer John McPhee to work at the market behind a stand, which led to a story published in The New Yorker entitled “Giving Good Weight.” “Giving Good Weight” was read into the Congressional Record by a congressman from California. The farmers’-market movement went national.
You’re currently active in planning efforts in Saugerties. What are the challenges?
I’ve spoken to the woman who runs the HUD office in Saugerties, and she said the waiting list for low-income housing runs into the hundreds. There’s a great need and a lot of resistance. Although there is a provision in the zoning law that stipulates ten percent of new housing in conservation subdivisions should be affordable, no developers have adopted this. The provision allows for cluster planning, which creates an average zoning density for a given parcel, saving open space and allowing for ribbons of open space connecting development; but no such developments have yet been built. There’s also a proposal by the town to allow illuminated moving-image signs. I’ve done drawings showing both how bad they would look and how much better the normal permitted signs appear.
Any suggestions on how to change this mindset?
We should go back to the 19th-century roots of the Hudson River School of painting, architecture and landscape architecture. Those artists in the 1850s had a vision of nature and architecture working together that’s very relevant today. One positive effort is the creation of the Saugerties Farmers’ Market, which connects people to the land and saves working farms.
The Saugerties Farmers’ Market opens its 17th season on Saturday, May 26, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Cahill Elementary School parking lot at 115 Main Street in Saugerties. For more information, visit www.saugertiesfarmersmarket.com.
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Harvesting Microgreens
Harvesting Microgreens
May 15, 2018
How microgreens is treated during harvest will play an important role in how fast it starts losing nutritional value. No matter what the variety, as soon as a microgreen is harvested it starts to degrade. The more the cellular structure of the plant is damaged during this process, the faster the loss of nutrients. To keep its nutritional integrity, one should put as little stress on the plant during the harvesting process.
Microgreens should be harvested in the coolest part of the day and quickly put into refrigeration. You can see why the scale is so important here. The bigger the farm, the less attention is paid to each variety and the ideal harvesting conditions it requires. Quality of produce is often replaced by the vast quantities needed to be harvested. The small farmer is able to skillfully harvest each microgreens tray, keeping as much of its nutrition intact as possible.
After microgreens have been harvested, they go through the packing and transportation stage. During this process, the temperature at which the produce is being held determines the speed in which it loses its nutrients. Evidence of this is shown by Penn State researchers Luke Laborde and Srilatha Pandrangi. Their testing was on the speed of nutrient loss in spinach after harvest. It showed that the warmer spinach is held, the quicker it loses its nutritional value. Their research showed that even when held at a steady 39 degrees F (refrigeration temperatures), most of its nutrients were lost after eight days.
Based on this research, much of the microgreens available to us has already lost the majority of its nutritional value. This especially true when we are looking at perishable greens. Even on the west coast, where much of the country's produce is grown, the majority of the microgreens sold in stores are already several days old. When you look at the extra time it takes to ship all over the country, you can start seeing why local food is so important. The average time that it takes our produce to get from the fields into our homes has increased in the last century as our farms have become fewer and farther away. Not only does this affect the nutritional content of the produce available to us but it also has a substantial environmental impact with the fossil fuel consumption it requires.
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Osram Acquires US ‘Smart Grow’ Lighting Firm
Lighting giant Osram is acquiring Fluence Bioengineering, Inc. of Austin, Texas. The company specialises in LED-based horticultural systems, using Osram LED chips, for a wide variety of applications including vertical farming, especially in urban area
Osram Acquires US ‘Smart Grow’ Lighting Firm
MAY 21, 2018 BY ANNA
Lighting giant Osram is acquiring Fluence Bioengineering, Inc. of Austin, Texas. The company specializes in LED-based horticultural systems, using Osram LED chips, for a wide variety of applications including vertical farming, especially in urban areas.
Potential crops range from salad greens and herbs to medicinal plants. Fluence was founded in 2013, has approximately 95 employees and its 2017 sales were in the mid-double-digit millions of dollars (USD).
LED-based solutions from Fluence can increase harvests up to 25 percent, reducing energy costs by as much as 50 percent and, through the targeted use of light, improving the quality and nutritional content of plants.
Increasing population and continued urbanisation are intensifying the demand for fresh food, especially in densely populated cities around the world.
In addition to growing healthy and tasty food, vertical farms reduce the need for long-distance transportation routes. They also lessen the need for pesticides, fertilisers and excessive water use, and ultimately reduce spoilage.
“Fluence is opening the floodgates to a huge future market,” said Stefan Kampmann, CTO of OSRAM Licht AG. “Its extensive knowledge of the horticulture market and possible applications, combined with Osram’s expertise in lighting technologies, sensors and connectivity, will position us as a leading horticultural solutions provider.”
Osram has increased its involvement in the horticulture sector over the last several years. The company has developed research and specialty luminaires that enable tailor-made light recipes to be controlled for specific plant types.
In 2017, Osram invested in the Munich-based startup Agrilution which develops grow boxes with LED lighting for home use.
Fluence Bioengineering, upon closing, will be positioned within Osram’s Professional and Industrial Applications segment in the Specialty Lighting business unit.
DIY Hydroponic Gardens: How To Design And Build an Inexpensive System For Growing Plants In Water
DIY Hydroponic Gardens: How To Design And Build an Inexpensive System For Growing Plants In Water
By urbanagnews
May 10, 2018
With practical information aimed at home DIYers, the new book DIY Hydroponic Gardens: How to Design and Build an Inexpensive System for Growing Plants in Water shows exactly how to build, plant, and maintain more than a dozen unique hydroponic systems, some of which cost just a few dollars to make. Author Tyler Baras (Farmer Tyler to his fans) shows how anyone can inexpensively grow produce without soil, offering a unique opportunity to have a productive garden indoors, or in areas where soil is not present.
An expert in hydroponics, Baras has developed many unique and easy-to-build systems for growing entirely in water, for both commercial and home use. In DIY Hydroponic Gardens, he shows with step-by-step photos precisely how to create these systems and how to plant and maintain them. All the information you need to get started with your home hydroponic system is included, including recipes for nutrient solutions, info on light and ventilation sources, and specific plant-by-plant details that explain how to grow the most popular vegetables in a self-contained, soilless system. There’s also 12+ hydroponic system builds and complete crop selection charts.
No soil? No sunlight? No problem for a hydroponic system, giving the gardener the power to grow plants anywhere. Even if you live in an area were water is scarce, a hydroponic system is the answer you’ve been looking for. Plus, hydroponic systems are sealed and do not allow evaporation, making water loss virtually nonexistent. The bottom line: with DIY Hydroponic Gardens, anyone, anywhere can garden by growing in water.
Tyler Baras, “Farmer Tyler,” is a well-renowned hydroponic grower with extensive experience in both hobby and commercial hydroponics. He attended the University of Florida, graduating Cum Laude from their Horticultural Sciences department and has studied agriculture in Spain and China. Besides writing books for both home gardeners and commercial growers, Tyler creates educational videos covering a range of horticultural topics and speaks at events throughout the year. His hydroponic demonstration sites have been featured on P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home, which airs on PBS and syndicated stations nationwide. Tyler currently works as a hydroponic consultant and has worked on several notable projects, including Central Market’s Growtainer, the first grocery store–owned and –managed onsite farm. Tyler continues to produce video content, which can be seen on digital magazine Urban Ag News and on www.FarmerTyler.com.
What’s The Difference: Hydroponics Vs. Aquaponics Vs. Aeroponics
What’s The Difference: Hydroponics Vs. Aquaponics Vs. Aeroponics
- 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.
Power 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.
Power 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.
Power 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.
CA: Similarities Between Running A Marathon And Running A Company
Bert Mucci, Mucci Farms
CA: Similarities Between Running A Marathon And Running A Company
It all began with two brothers throwing caution to the wind. Today Mucci Farms is a massive producer of greenhouse vegetables.
A challenging climate
Lake Erie, one of the five Great Lakes of North America, sits on the Canadian-US border. It is a place where strong winds blow and temperatures fluctuate from minus 20°C in winter to plus 30°C with 95% humidity in summer. But that hasn’t stopped a long line of growers trying their luck.
On its north shore, the Leamington and Kingsville region of Ontario is today home to the largest concentration of greenhouses in North America. It is here that brothers Gino and Tony Mucci decided to throw caution to the wind when they arrived from Italy. After leasing their first piece of land they bought some of their own and then expanded one plot at a time around the great lake. When they built their first greenhouse complex in the mid-1970s, people thought they were crazy.
Now three of their sons, Bert, Danny and Gianni, work alongside Vice Marketing Manager Joe Spano to run an ever-expanding, state-of-the-art greenhouse cultivation business, which includes a range of proprietary fruit and vegetables. Mucci Farms today covers an area of more than 1.5 million square meters in Ontario. And they are planning a major expansion in Ohio. At the sprawling plant in Kingsville, just a few steps from Lake Erie, long lines of cucumbers, tomato vines and heads of lettuce thrive in uniform, pleasant light.
Ideal greenhouse conditions with the help of climate screens
CEO Bert Mucci tells us how the climate screens Svensson supplies help Mucci Farms to create the ultimate indoor climate and maximize production. “No other suppliers come close to the quality of Svensson climate screens,” he says, and then lists the advantages.
“These screens help to maintain the perfect climate year-round – both during the ice-cold winters and the hot summers. When the sun rays are at their strongest, they give us soft, diffuse light and a very comfortable indoor climate.” Mucci Farms also saves up to 20% on its energy bill. “We use Luxous screens on cold winter days because we can save a lot of energy that way without losing too much light,” Bert continues. “Harmony, on the other hand, provides us with a diffuse light that softly showers perfect quality light evenly into the entire plant. It also provides us with the shade we need. And finally, we use Obscura, both to save energy and to prevent light from escaping the greenhouse when it is dark outside.”
"Svensson screens in combination with the greenhouses’ protective shell create the ideal conditions for Mucci Farms to increase its productivity and profits. And this method of cultivation is clearly a trend for the future in light of the environment and the need to grow more food with less land. The difference in cultivation efficiency of growing in a climate screen-controlled environment such as this compared to plants directly exposed to the elements is simply huge."
Mucci Farms has a few more environmental tricks up its sleeve, too. For example, it recently introduced a sustainability programme called GreenERhouse, which includes recycled water. But for now business is blooming and Bert Mucci has more and more rows of vegetables to inspect.
Mucci Farms has come far since Bert’s father and uncle built their first greenhouse. Bert Mucci isn’t afraid to take the long road either when he has his sights set on a goal. He’s been a keen marathon runner for many years. Are there any similarities between running a marathon and running a company that grows greenhouse vegetables? Bert replies without hesitation: "Sure! Both require perseverance, a strong work ethic, dedication, and strategy."For more information: Ludvig Svensson
US (CO): Aeroponic Garden Provides Students With Fresh Greens
US (CO): Aeroponic Garden Provides Students With Fresh Greens
A new aeroponic garden in the Village Center Dining and Community Commons is the first in the nation to provide students, staff and faculty with fresh salad greens grown on site in a high-tech greenhouse attached to a dining hall.
The “air garden” will help the university reduce its carbon footprint, cut energy costs and eliminate the need for harvesting, cleaning, packing and transporting food from outside farms.
The greenhouse in CU Boulder’s Village Center Dining and Community Commons occupies nearly 3,000 south-facing square feet and consists of 137 grow towers able to produce 44 plants each without soil.
“Locally grown food just tastes better,” said Farm Manager Alex Macmillan, a horticulturalist and organic farmer who will oversee the greenhouse and its production schedule.
Macmillan and student-assistants will start by growing romaine lettuce and other vegetables in stages to ensure a continuous supply of fresh greens.
The inaugural harvest in March produced 15 pounds of kale, 10 pounds of all-star lettuce and 10 pounds of arugula that dining hall employees served to students, staff and faculty.
The aeroponic system at CU Boulder relies on water and “soilless media” to provide nutrients to plants, allowing them to grow faster and produce greater yields on average.
Vertical farming allows for better space usage and efficiency, and automated operations help maintain optimal sunlight, shade, temperature and humidity levels, creating the best year-round growing conditions.
Sensors will monitor conditions to prevent fans, lights and other equipment from running unnecessarily when natural sunlight and other conditions are sufficient.
“I’m excited to get growing and hope this new greenhouse inspires people to be informed about where their food comes from,” Macmillan said. “It’s not grown by someone you’ve never met on some faraway farm with unknown farming practices. It’s me, right here, and you can literally see how I’m growing your food.”
Source: University of Colorado Boulder
Publication date: 5/2/2018
Copy of Growtainers Expands With Central Market, Looks to New Crops
For just about a year now, Central Market in Dallas has tested out offering produce that was grown on-site in a Growtainer. Evidently, that partnership has gone so well that Central Market is making the relationship more permanent and expanding it with the addition of another Growtainer.
Growtainers Expands With Central Market, Looks to New Crops
By Chris Albrecht | The Spoon
February 17, 2018
For just about a year now, Central Market in Dallas has tested out offering produce that was grown on-site in a Growtainer. Evidently, that partnership has gone so well that Central Market is making the relationship more permanent and expanding it with the addition of another Growtainer.
Growtainers are modified shipping containers that provide a food-safe indoor growing environment. Each one contains a vertical rack system for holding crops, crop-specific LED lighting fixtures, and a proprietary irrigation system. Growtainers come in 40, 45 and 53-foot sizes and are customized for each customer, costing anywhere from $75,000 – $125,000 a piece. The amount a Growtainer can produce depends on the crop.
The Growtainer at Central Market offers leafy greens and herbs grown on-site in a 53-foot container. While he couldn’t provide specific numbers, Growtainer Founder and President Glenn Behrman told me by phone that “demand outpaces supply” for the market’s store-grown produce. “We’ve proven the concept,” he said.
Central Market expanding its relationship with Growtainer helps push the idea of produce grown on-site more into the mainstream. Other players in this sector include Inafarm, which has been installing indoor vertical farming systems at food wholesalers in Berlin. And here at home, indoor farming startup Plenty raised $200 million last year from investors including Jeff Bezos (who happens to run Amazon, which owns Whole Foods).
As on-site farming technology improves and gets cheaper and easier to use, it’s not hard to imagine more stores opting to grow their own fresh produce in-house instead of having it transported across the country.
Behrman says that there are Growtainers all over the world for a variety of agricultural and pharmaceutical customers. He built two Growtainers for the Community Foodbank of Eastern Oklahoma so they could grow their own produce, and he’s talked with both the military and the United Nations about installing Growatiners for them in more remote (and volatile) areas.
One group Behrman hasn’t chatted with is venture capitalists. He laughed when I asked him about funding. “We have no investors, and we’re profitable,” said Behrman. But in the next breath, he said he realizes that his current go-it-alone approach won’t scale. “I think once this Central Market project expands and becomes more mainstream, I will have to look for some funding.”
Until that time, Behrman wants to have Growtainers produce more high value crops. “Lettuce and leafy greens are not that challenging,” he said. Behrman, who’s been in horticulture since 1971, believes Growtainers could be excellent for growing exotic mushrooms that have short shelf lives, or fungi that historically could only grow in particular seasons.
Perhaps after another year or so you’ll see truffles and porcinis grown on-site and offered at Central Market (and elsewhere).
Hydroponics, The Future of food?
Hydroponics is built around the concept of having constant optimum farming conditions, in an isolated closed loop environment such as a warehouse, in which variables such as CO2 and light levels can all be controlled. A key feature is that the roots of the plants are suspended in a mineral-rich solution rather than soil.
Hydroponics, The Future of food?
Earth's population is expected to reach in excess of 8 billion by 2050, meaning food production will need to increase by 50%. Whilst 1 in 9 people do not have access to the food needed in order to live a healthy life.
Despite this, human activities that are also restricting the amount of arable land means the future concerning food production has to shift.
One of the solutions being considered currently, and which is being treated as feasible on a local and countrywide platform concerns the field of hydroponics.
Hydroponics is built around the concept of having constant optimum farming conditions, in an isolated closed loop environment such as a warehouse, in which variables such as CO2 and light levels can all be controlled. A key feature is that the roots of the plants are suspended in a mineral rich solution rather than soil.
In order to discover more about the future of hydroponics I interviewed Robert Jones. The director of South London based start up Hydroponics company Herb and Bloom.
“The future for Urban Farming is Hydroponics” Mr Jones states, “There's a massive need to combat the food production problem due to population growth and this method of farming will hopefully be able to meet these demands and is sustainable ”
Farming, he envisions will become increasingly localised as “Technology gets cheaper it will become easier and more affordable. A wider range of produce can be made.”
“The benefits are abundant when it comes to the future of farming, produce will be fresher than ever and be much better for the environment thanks to dramatic reduction in transportation cost and less plastic packaging.”
Currently across London multiple projects are being orchestrated, with grand visions including layered skyscraper farms, whilst others focuses on individual units. Already we see this happening on a small scale with disused bomb shelters in London harbouring small hydroponic farms.
Despite it not being cost effective yet, in the near future perhaps we will be seeing hydroponics being utilised on a local level in order to provide the food of tomorrow.
Big Tex Urban Farms Uses Hydroponic Systems To Teach, Feed Local Dallas Residents
Big Tex Urban Farms Uses Hydroponic Systems To Teach, Feed Local Dallas Residents
By David Kuack
May 8, 2018
Big Tex Urban Farms has seen the benefits of hydroponic growing in its efforts to become a better community partner.
Big Tex Urban Farms has exceeded beyond anything that co-founder Drew Demler could have ever imagined. Demler, who is the director of horticulture at the State Fair of Texas in Dallas, said the growing operation got its start out of an interest by fair president Mitchell Glieber to become more involved with the Dallas community.
Drew Demler, director of horticulture at the State Fair of Texas, founded Big Tex Urban Farms in order to grow food that would be donated to the local community.
Photos by Jessie Wood, State Fair of Texas
Demler said one of Glieber’s main objectives when he became president was to get the State Fair of Texas to be more active in the community.
“The goal was to be a better community partner,” said Demler. “With that in mind, Jason Hayes, who is the fair’s creative director, and I hatched this plan to start a vegetable garden. We wanted to utilize space that was not in use during the rest of the year when the fair isn’t going on. This space is primarily asphalt parking lots.
“We pitched the idea of growing in these specially-designed mobile grow boxes to use up some of that parking space to grow food that would be donated to the local community. We started with a small budget in 2016 using 100 mobile planter boxes to grow food outdoors.
During that first year, we learned a lot about the soil, how to grow and ways to improve. We got some decent yields. More importantly, we made some important connections with a couple community groups to whom we donated the food we produced.”
During 2016 all of the planting and maintenance was done by Demler and his full time staff of three people.
“During that first year I was really the only one who had much experience growing vegetables,” he said. “There was definitely a learning process for the rest of the crew. We learned when to plant crops, how to harvest and what it needs to look like when it is harvested.”
Community outreach
The food that was harvested the first year was donated to two local charitable organizations.
Drew Demler (left) and the Big Tex Urban Farms crew are producing food using outdoor mobile grow boxes and greenhouse hydroponic production systems.
“Baylor Scott & White Health and Wellness Institute in Mill City, Texas, is our primary beneficiary,” Demler said. “Mill City starts about a mile down the street from the fairgrounds. The institute hosts a farmers market for the community on Tuesday and Friday.
“A big focus of the institute is helping people with chronic diseases including heart disease and diabetes. One of the institute’s main objectives is to get people eating healthy, fresh vegetables. We donate vegetables to them and they in turn give the produce away. This is in a community where there really aren’t many other good options for fresh produce. Community residents have learned that they can show up on Tuesday and Friday and pick up lettuce, collard greens, Swiss chard, basil, chives and other vegetables that we produce.”
Prior to working with Demler, the institute had a contract with a produce supply company that provided fruits and vegetables shipped in from California and other outside areas where produce is grown. None of the produce was grown locally.
Another beneficiary of the fresh produce grown by Demler and his staff is Cornerstone Baptist Church. The church feeds the homeless six days a week.
“The church is involved with feeding the people who need food more than anyone,” Demler said. “The church had been receiving donated produce that was declined by different area grocery stores. They weren’t receiving anything that would be considered fresh and they weren’t receiving any greens or lettuces at all. We have been able to change that. A lot of what we donate to the church are leafy greens.”
Positive response leads to hydroponic production
Demler said growing and donating the fresh vegetables gave him and his staff an opportunity to develop good relationships with the organizations they were assisting.
“These community groups were really happy with what we were doing to assist them in their efforts to feed people in the community who really needed help,” Demler said. “We also received some good media coverage which helped generate more interest in what we were doing.”
Because of the positive response from the groups being helped and the media coverage, Demler said his budget for 2017 was increased considerably from what he started in 2016.
In 2017 Big Tex Urban Farms installed a deep water culture tank and six 8-foot tall vertical grow towers.
“With an increase in funding, we expanded from around 100 mobile outdoor planter beds in 2016 to 529 by the time 2017 ended,” he said. “Also before the fair started in late September we installed a 30- by 15-foot hydroponic deep water culture tank in one corner of our largest 7,200-square-foot greenhouse. We also installed six 8-foot tall vertical tower gardens. This was our first venture into hydroponic growing. The greenhouse had been used to grow plants like palm trees and bougainvillea, and to overwinter hanging baskets, as well as be a really beautiful exhibit room during the state fair itself.”
Demler worked with the staff at Hort Americas, including Chris Higgins, Tyler Baras, Matt White and Jared Lee, to design and install the hydroponic production systems.
Expanding hydroponic production, systems
Demler said the amount of produce that was being harvested from the hydroponic systems got his attention right away.
“In the short amount of time that we had installed the systems and started growing, we were very impressed with the results,” he said. “Our total production indoors and outdoors in 2017 was around 2,800 pounds of produce. This year we have already grown over 2,000 pounds of produce. Over 90 percent of that has come from the hydroponic systems. By the end of April we will have exceeded what we produced for all of 2017. This is one of the main reasons that we’re going to expand our hydroponic systems. It is such a better and more efficient way to grow.”
Demler said the hydroponic systems that were installed in 2017 take up about a 50- by 50-foot area, which he considers to be a relatively small footprint.
“Another reason for expanding the hydroponic systems is the overwhelmingly positive response from the public during last year’s state fair. We are planning to turn the greenhouse into an indoor ag growing exhibit. This year the public will have access to the hydroponic systems all 24 days of the fair. We have plans to expand on our hydroponics and indoor growing setups using more of the greenhouse space that we have. We currently have three permanent greenhouse structures and one greenhouse we put up and take down every year.”
Big Tex Urban Farms is expanding its hydroponic systems at the State Fair of Texas because of the overwhelmingly positive response from the public during last year’s state fair. This year the public will have access to the hydroponic systems during the 24 days of the fair.
Demler said he and his staff are in the process of deciding which additional type of hydroponic systems they plan to install.
“We definitely plan to add another deep water culture tank,” he said. “This tank is going to be slightly larger, measuring 15-feet wide like the first tank, but about 45-feet long. This will provide an increase in production space so that we should be able to crank out a lot more leafy greens by the end of this year.
“We are also going to add another production system so that we can grow hydroponic vine crops inside the greenhouse as well. This system will enable us to grow tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers if we choose. We haven’t chosen the system yet. We are doing the research to see what systems are within our budget.”
Another hydroponic system that Demler plans to add is a nutrient film technique trough system.
“Since we began using the hydroponic systems right before the fair started last year that didn’t give me a lot of time to trial the systems,” he said. “One of the things I bring to this is a general horticulture view of knowing what to grow when. We have people telling us they have a hard time managing lettuce in NFT hydroponics systems during the summer because of the heat. So I want to try growing some bush beans and other crops that I haven’t seen other people grow. I want to see what different crops these systems can support. I’m thinking of growing mini bell peppers and dwarf tomatoes in the NFT set up.
“We not only want to be a facility that grows produce for the community—that’s our primary focus. But we also want to be a research facility as well. We want people to be able to learn about how to grow using these systems. We want outside groups to come in and participate and learn from our successes and our mistakes.”
For more: Big Tex Urban Farms, (214) 565-9931; info@BigTex.com; https://bigtex.com/urbanfarm.
David Kuack is a freelance technical writer in Fort Worth, Texas; dkuack@gmail.com.