Difference between revisions of "Food/Controlled Environment Agriculture"

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−	[[Image:Hydroponics.jpg|right|180px]]Hydroponics is the art of growing plants in a nutrient-enriched water rather than in soil. This allows for precise control of the amount of nutrients that the plants receive. The figures on {{wp|Hydroponics#Higher_Yields|Wikipedia}}, show that hydroponics yields are 50% to over 1700% higher than yields from growing in soil.  Aeroponics takes the idea a step further: the roots of the plants hang in mid-air in an empty box and are intermittently sprayed with nutrient-enriched water. This results in significantly higher yields even than hydroponics <sup>[http://www.springerlink.com/content/q21136170183051l/]</sup> <sup>[http://www.buzzle.com/articles/aeroponics-vs-hydroponics.html]</sup>. Also, such a controlled environment eliminates the dependence of food production upon the season, allowing food to be grown all year around. This fact effects at least a fourfold increase in productivity over traditional farms, depending on the crop. 30 harvests of strawberries can be grown in one year using controlled-environment aeroponics, compared to one crop a year growing outdoors in soil.	+	[[Image:Hydroponics.jpg|right|180px]]Hydroponics is the art of growing plants in a nutrient-enriched water rather than in soil. This allows for precise control of the amount of nutrients that the plants receive. The figures on {{wp|Hydroponics#Higher_Yields|Wikipedia}}, show that hydroponics yields are 50% to over 1700% higher than yields from growing in soil.  Aeroponics takes the idea a step further: the roots of the plants hang in mid-air in an empty box and are intermittently sprayed with nutrient-enriched water. This results in significantly higher yields even than hydroponics <sup>[http://www.springerlink.com/content/q21136170183051l/]</sup> <sup>[http://www.buzzle.com/articles/aeroponics-vs-hydroponics.html]</sup>.
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		+	A controlled environment eliminates the dependence of food production upon the season, allowing food to be grown all year around. This is known as constant-yield growing. While only one harvest a year can be grown conventionally, constant-yield growth gives at least 4 harvests a year and as many as 30 for plants like strawberries.
	The precision of control over the growing medium also lends itself to [[Advanced automation|automation]] more readily than does growing in soil. And {{em}} best of all {{em}} by optimizing the nutrient flow, we can supply plants with the nutrients they need to produce the flavonoids that give them their flavour. With controlled growing, it is possible to achieve a more intense flavour than growing in soil.		The precision of control over the growing medium also lends itself to [[Advanced automation|automation]] more readily than does growing in soil. And {{em}} best of all {{em}} by optimizing the nutrient flow, we can supply plants with the nutrients they need to produce the flavonoids that give them their flavour. With controlled growing, it is possible to achieve a more intense flavour than growing in soil.

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Revision as of 16:08, 6 July 2010

Hydroponics is the art of growing plants in a nutrient-enriched water rather than in soil. This allows for precise control of the amount of nutrients that the plants receive. The figures on Wikipedia , show that hydroponics yields are 50% to over 1700% higher than yields from growing in soil. Aeroponics takes the idea a step further: the roots of the plants hang in mid-air in an empty box and are intermittently sprayed with nutrient-enriched water. This results in significantly higher yields even than hydroponics ^{[1] [2]}.

A controlled environment eliminates the dependence of food production upon the season, allowing food to be grown all year around. This is known as constant-yield growing. While only one harvest a year can be grown conventionally, constant-yield growth gives at least 4 harvests a year and as many as 30 for plants like strawberries.

The precision of control over the growing medium also lends itself to automation more readily than does growing in soil. And — best of all — by optimizing the nutrient flow, we can supply plants with the nutrients they need to produce the flavonoids that give them their flavour. With controlled growing, it is possible to achieve a more intense flavour than growing in soil.

Hydroponics also achieves a ten- or twenty-fold decrease in the amount of water compared to growing in soil ^[3]. And aeroponics is even more water-efficient than hydroponics. Aeroponics pioneer Richard Stoner has claimed that aeroponics uses 2% the water of drip irrigation.

It has already been demonstrated that a hydroponics garden can grow 2kg of vegetables a day in 20 square meters ^[4] — enough for one person eating an extremely vegetable-rich diet. It is realistic to stack five layers of crops one on top of another in a 2.5m high system, reducing the area needed from 20m² to 4m². This makes it possible for a city-dweller to grow their own food in a small apartment — and it is an important piece of the space colony puzzle.

LEDs can be used as an alternative to the sun in providing the light for plants to grow. Unlike ordinary lightbulbs, LED panels can be designed to emit a full spectrum of light, which is what plants need to grow. LEDs could be useful in situations where sunlight is unavailable - such as in winter in regions far from the Equator, in underground or underwater dwellings, in cities where a demand for space means food must be grown on stacked shelves indoors, and in space stations. Currently the main obstacle to large-scale controlled environment agriculture projects such as The Vertical Farm Project is the cost of energy needed to provide the light. As LEDs become cheaper and more energy-efficient (as with recent developments in OLED and PHOLED technology) this sort of production of high-quality food is becomes more and more feasible.

Light use can also be optimized by using fibre-optic cables to pipe sunlight down from the rooftop to the plants. This would significantly reduce the amount of energy needed.

Using aeroponics and LED grow lights, the conditions of plant-growth can be precisely monitored, controlled and optimized. A controlled environment greatly reduces the threat of pests and plant-diseases, and allows for fast, consistent growth of healthy, nutritious, pesticide-free and tasty plants. Dickson Despommier, an advocate of vertical, controlled-environment farming, has painted a picture of what this farming might be like -

"Each floor will have its own watering and nutrient monitoring systems. There will be sensors for every single plant that tracks how much and what kinds of nutrients the plant has absorbed. You'll even have systems to monitor plant diseases by employing DNA chip technologies that detect the presence of plant pathogens by simply sampling the air and using snippets from various viral and bacterial infections. It's very easy to do.

Moreover, a gas chromatograph will tell us when to pick the plant by analyzing which flavenoids the produce contains. These flavenoids are what gives the food the flavors you're so fond of, particularly for more aromatic produce like tomatoes and peppers. These are all right-off-the-shelf technologies. The ability to construct a vertical farm exists now. We don't have to make anything new."

If open collaborative design is applied to researching growing foods in controlled environments, algorithms could be developed modelling how nutrient flow, timing, duration, intensity and color of light, and strains of plants used affects food yields and flavour. Programming these algorithms into computers that control the LED lights and the nutrient flow in the aeroponic system would yield a truly automated food-production system that anyone could use to grow their own food indoors. All this technology exists currently, and is being constantly improved and refined.

Aeroponic plant production is the most advanced method of growing food available. Not only does it achieve incredibly high yields in short times, it lends itself easily to automation, while minimizing water, energy and land use, maximizing nutritional values and producing awesome food. It is commercially viable now, even in our scarcity-based economy, and there are several profitable aeroponic farms. As these scale-up, it will become more and more cost-effective. The Vietnamese government is introducing a large-scale scheme to grow potatoes aeroponically.