Showing posts with label Hydroponic vegetable farming. Show all posts
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3:41 AM

Certain forward-thinking people square measure reinventing farming as we all know it. Indoor, organic urban farms growing food vertically victimization husbandry and aquaponic principles, square measure maturation round the country. The push for different ways of raising food follow partially, on the heels of native governments outlawing owners from growing vegetable gardens in their yards, and forcing folks to tear out existing, healthy gardens. supplying the wheels of amendment square measure the county, state and central wittingly making an attempt to destroy the organic phenomenon with chemtrails, pesticides, growth hormones and GMOs, as they alter the terribly molecular nature of our food. These actions move the guts, stimulate rage, emotion and worry, and force humans to vary to survive or die.

grow your hanging gardens of BabylonLooking for alternative routes to feed themselves and also the community, massive and little different husbandry ventures square measure shooting up all over. Smaller ventures like the Urban Hydro Project in state capital, Tennessee is that the farm-child of Jeffery Orkin; and his efforts square measure paying off. A demand community support in late 2012 raised over $3,300 in donations, enough cash for Orkin to shop for materials to increase his fledgling indoor organic garden on the highest floor of a domicile building in state capital. though the Urban Hydro Project has solely a hundred thirty five sq. feet of floor house, the space has twelve foot ceilings, and Orkin plans to plant to the ceiling. lovely organic vegetables square measure mature victimization farming, wherever no soil is employed. Orkin says this is often a additional economical methodology of production, and one that produces higher yields and higher tasting organic food year spherical.

While the Urban Hydro Project continues to expand and thrive in state capital, FarmedHere up up outside of Chicago and claims the respect of being the most important indoor vertical farm within the U.S.. based by Jolanta Hardej, it's placed in a very Brobdingnagian ninety,000 square measure abandoned warehouse in Bedford Park, Illinois. Hardej had the vision as so much back as 2008 to grow contemporary, organic manufacture victimization aquaponic techniques, and no soil. Like Orkin, Hardej says the vegetables square measure higher tasting than once historically mature. Plants at FarmedHere square measure mature in multiple stacked levels and fed by mineral-rich water circulated throughout the system from fish tanks containing hormone-free genus Tilapia fish.

FarmedeHere is trying to provide over a million pounds of contemporary, organic foliate greens, freed from chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, and GMOs.

Indoor farming provides property choices
As additional tight government rules square measure place in situ dominant individual freedoms, and larger efforts square measure created to change the essence of food by companies like Monsanto, the provision of organic, life-staining foods can diminish. because the air and land square measure poisoned chemically and different corrupting parts in a trial to marginalise life, different means that of growing food are going to be required for people who square measure willing to fight to survive the system.

· Indoor husbandry comes like these et al round the country manufacture organic food year spherical, beneath excellent temperature, wetness and lighting conditions

· because of the controlled growing atmosphere, indoor farms offer property agriculture for all -- the house gardener, native tailgate markets, and huge food chains such Whole Foods, inexperienced Grocery, and different massive grocery chains tightened organic foods

· Growing manufacture with farming is feasible for individual owners by fixing a special growing station in their homes, garages or sheds. Some vertical growing instrumentality is moveable and may be captive outside in hotter weather if desired.

· Indoor vertical farming incorporates a little footprint, permitting people to grow food victimization aquaponics or farming off from curious government eyes. in addition, little or massive indoor community gardens square measure attainable in smaller-sized buildings, allowing teams to make gardens, purchase provides and share contemporary vegetables along.

Sources for this article include:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
http://www.kickstarter.com
http://www.motherearthnews.com
http://www.ugrosystems.com/
http://www.hgtv.com

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12:15 PM

Growing vegetables hydroponically leads to a more expensive, but tastier veggie, cumberlink.com reports.

Hydroponic growing leads to tastier vegetablesTomatoes are the king crop in hydroponics because of the demand for them in early spring and late fall when field tomatoes aren't available. The challenge is to sell them at $2.99 per pound when field tomatoes are going for 99 cents, says Mark Toigo, 42, who has run hydroponic greenhouses for the last 15 years, among other duties, at the family-owned Toigo Orchards in Southampton Township, Cumberland County. Hydroponic grower Barb Rose, 52, co-owner of Beck-n-Rose of North Middleton Township, agrees with Toigo. She also developed a niche market in the last three years --- a few chefs at "better restaurants who care what tomatoes look and taste like," Rose says. She counts among her customers Fetter Brookside Market south of Carlisle, Mountain Lakes west of Carlisle, Oak Grove Farms of Mechanicsburg and the Butcher Shop in Chambersburg. For next season, all Beck-n-Rose produce is committed to current customers, says Rose, a former marketing manager for a start-up software company that sold last year for $40 million. "You do need to be a manager and a marketer" to be profitable, Toigo says, raising his voice above the half-dozen four-foot-wide fans that ventilate his 90- by 130-foot greenhouse off South Mountain Estates Road. He steps over piles of vines on the concrete greenhouse floor, the result of cropping the tops off tomato plants that have the last of the crop ripening on the vines. He will plant new tomato vines again in January for harvest beginning in April. Although growers would like to produce tomatoes through the winter, year-round tomato production isn't feasible this far north. They say it doesn't have the flavor of food grown in soil," says Brubeck, who sells mostly to restaurants and to some grocery stores in Cumberland, Dauphin and Lebanon counties.

Original source:
http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2005/08/07/business/busi01.txt

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10:35 AM

by Mike Adams

Hydroponics, the practice of growing plants in water instead of soil, received a giant lift from a New Delhi family that created a purely organic nutrient mix that has sustained tomatoes and Arjun.

Original source:
http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?storyflag=y&leftnm=lmnu5&leftindx=5&lselect=2&chklogin=N&autono=202585

Detailshydroponic tomatoes Indian family makes a breakthrough in hydroponics

Indian family makes a breakthrough in hydroponics Indian family makes a breakthrough in hydroponicsAn Indian hobbyist has created a purely organic nutrient mixture for growing plants in water. Although it is still an evolving science, hydroponic agriculture (growing plants in water solution rather than soil) is spreading fast the world over. The nutritional requirement of the plants in this system of soilless farming is met by the nutrient mixtures, called hydroponics fertiliser mixtures, added to the water in which the plant roots are kept submerged. These mixtures are made of chemical plant nutrients. A breakthrough has now been achieved by an Indian hydroponics hobbyist in creating a purely organic nutrient mixture for growing plants in water. This wholly chemical-free plant growth solution has been tested successfully for growing several plants, including common vegetables like tomato and arbi and some high value medicinal plants like Brahmi, Arjun and Cineraria. Indeed, a good deal of research is underway in this system of soilless farming in the US and Europe but not much headway has been made anywhere in organic hydroponics. Of course, some hydroponics enthusiasts abroad have been experimenting with various kinds of organic manures and mixtures of plants, but successful and commercially viable organic hydroponics models are still not available. His daughter, Shweta Singh, a Delhi University botany student, has been assisting him in discovering and further improving the biofertiliser mixture for growing plants in ordinary water. “I will work on it for a couple of years more before thinking of launching commercial production of this bio-fertiliser for hydroponics. However, if some government organisation, such as the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), comes forward, I am willing to cooperate with it in promoting organic hydroponics in India,” he says. He believes that nearly 200 commercially important plants can be grown by hydroponics technique.

Source: Article taken from Natural News, only for information purpose

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6:29 AM
Truly a wonder of modern science - hydroponic gardens produce bountiful harvests of fruit, vegetables, grains, herbs and flowers in places never before able to sustain growth. Hydroponic gardens produce the healthiest crops with the highest yields and vitamin content thanks to their perfectly balanced nutrient solutions. Modern hydroponic methods provide food for millions of people worldwide and supply you, me and the food service industry with superior produce. In fact, hydroponic cultivation is so effective, NASA has devised an advanced method of hydroponics for use in outer space. The science of hydroponics began with experimentation into deter-mining the elementary composition of plants. These experiments have been dated as early as 1600 A.D., however, records show that plants have been cultivated in soil free mixtures of sand and gravel even earlier. The hanging gardens of Babylon and the floating gardens of the Mexican Aztecs are perfect examples of early hydroponic gardening. Egyptian hieroglyphics have even been found depicting the cultivation of plants in water as far back as several hundred years BC.


The word "Hydroponics" was coined by Dr. W.F. Gerick in 1936 to describe the cultivation of both edible and ornamental plants in a solution of water and dissolved nutrients. The simple meaning is derived from the Greek "Hydro"- meaning water, and "Pones"- meaning labor. In this method of cultivation, plants are provided with the nutrients required for growth by a “nutrient” solution which is basically nutrient enriched mineral water. This nutrient solution can be circulated around the roots by  either the passive force of gravity or the active force of an electromechanical pump. Some systems simply bath the roots in nutrient solution and use an air pump to oxygenate the solution from below to prevent stagnation and provide the roots with important oxygen.

Hydroponics an overviewPlants grown hydroponically are healthier than their soil grown counterparts since they receive a perfectly balanced diet and do not come in contact with soilborne pests and diseases. Super efficient hydroponic systems like the ones we show you how to build conserve water and nutrients by preventing evaporation and runoff. Arid regions where water is scarce can now grow crops with hydroponics. Since hydroponic systems deliver water and nutrients directly to the plant, crops can be grown closer together without starving each other and healthier plants add to a higher yield. By growing crops in a sterile environment, under ideal conditions, hydroponics saves the costs of soil preparation, insecticides, fungicides and losses due to drought and ground flooding.
In soil, plants waste a tremendous amount of energy developing a large root system to search for moisture and nutrients. When grown hydroponically, the roots are bathed or sprayed with nutrients dissolved in water. This way their energy can be redirected into the production of more foliage, flowers, fruits and vegetables.
Plants grown hydroponically are healthier because they receive a well balanced 'diet'. They are more vigorous because little energy is wasted searching for water and nutrients. As a result, hydroponically grown produce is generally larger, tastier, and more nutritious than the same produce grown in soil. In order to give the physical support soil would normally provide, a sterile medium such as sand, gravel, rocks, cocofiber or rockwool (or combination of each) may be used. In the case of aeroponics, no medium is used and the plants receive physical support from baskets and in this case, wires suspended from the roof. These plants are rotated through a chamber that supplies their roots with a fine spray of water and hydroponic nutrients.Advertisement3

Oxygen to the roots increases a plant’s metabolism substantially. Some advantages of replacing soil with a sterile medium are:
1. Elimination of soil borne pests, funguses and diseases.
2. Elimination of troublesome weeds and stray seedlings.
3. Reduction of health risks and labor costs associated with pest management and soil care. 
At the Environmental Research Laboratory (ERL) at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Dr. Carl Hodges and Dr. Merle Jensen in conjunction with Walt Disney Productions, have developed new concepts for presenting hydroponic technologies to the public in an entertaining way. The ERL helped create two attractions called "Listen to The Land" and "Tomorrow’s Harvest" - both major facilities at Epcot Center near Orlando, Florida. Hydroponics is NASA's solution to provide a self sufficient food source for future space stations and proposed visitors to mars. The administration has sponsored a research program titled Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS) in order to further develop the technology and carry it into the future. The picture below is of Epcot/ NASA’s Space Agriculture expo as seen from a tour of the Epcot Center attraction. The lighting used in these examples is high pressure sodium or HPS, which delivers an excellent spectrum of color and output in lumens. High Intensity Discharge (H.I.D.) lighting, which includes the HPS and metal halide type lamps, is the best lighting to use when gardening indoors or supplementing natural lighting outdoors due to its efficiency and close representation of the sun’s natural light color and intensity.
Source: Oasis Agro Industries Pakistan
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1:57 AM
By Imran Rana
Tahir Rana is a nuclear physicist who gave up a job in Canada to set up a vegetable farm in Faisalabad. He is part of a growing number of people worldwide who have been drawn in by the extraordinary profits in hydroponic vegetable farming, a new method that dramatically increases productivity and thus farmer incomes.
Hydroponic farms are unique in that they do not require any fertile soil. Indeed many of the world’s largest hydroponic farms are set up in the deserts of the Middle East or unfertile soils in other parts of the world. Seeds are placed in a growing medium – which can be either solid or liquid – in trays made from steel pipes. The advantage of this system is that nearly all of the nutrients poured into the growing medium are absorbed by the plant, making it exponentially more efficient and increasing productivity manifold.
High-tech agriculture: Hydroponic vegetable farmingRana has set a up a small company just outside Faisalabad called Fareed Farmhouse, where he produces three varieties of tomato (cherry tomato, strawberry tomato, beef tomato), cucumber and capsicum. His production capacity is significantly above the norm.
“Through this technique, farmers can get between 450 and 550 tons of vegetables per acre, compared to the average yield of 15 tons per acre using traditional farming,” said Rana Zahid, the project director at Fareed Farmhouse.
Rana uses coconut waste imported from Sri Lanka as the solid medium in which he grows his plants. The vegetable plants are then irrigated through a water injection system. Fareed Farm uses reverse osmosis water purification systems to ensure the quality of the water.
Each plant requires up to two litres of water per day, which needs to be slightly acidic, with a pH of 5.8, according to Zahid.
Fareed Farmhouse produces relatively high-end vegetables that are consumed by higher income customers. His buyers include some of the large retail and wholesale chains in the country as well as hotels that have traditionally imported many of these vegetables from Europe.
Rana sells the tomatoes for about Rs225 per kilogram, compared to the cost of importing them from the Netherlands, which can run as high as Rs800 per kilogram. The seeds for the tomatoes at Fareed Farmhouse are imported from Canada and many of the other raw materials from China and Sri Lanka. Yet while the imported raw materials can be expensive, the method allows the company to save on other expenses.
“Our production method allows us to not use any kind of pesticides,” said Rana Arshad, a quality control officer at Fareed farmhouse.
The methods used by Fareed Farmhouse, however, do not come cheap. Hydroponic farming requires an investment of up to Rs1.5 million per acre, though it can yield net profits of up to Rs3 million per acre annually. Tahir Rana, however, is not content with just reaping the rewards of the existing techniques. He plans to spend up to Rs4 million in researching new methods and new variants of seeds. He is also planning on rapidly expanding his production base to up to 20 acres in the Faisalabad area.
Rana is a firm believer in the potential of hydroponic farming to transform Pakistani agriculture. “Every year, we import vegetables from India. If the government takes an interest in promoting these new technologies, we would not need to import from other countries. In fact, the country could earn a lot of foreign exchange by exporting to other countries.”
While Fareed Farmhouse is thus far focused on high-end vegetables, it appears that the company believes this method can be used to produce more mass market products as well.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 23rd, 2012.
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1:57 AM
Pakistan can enhance vegetable and fruit crops yield with hydroponic farming technology to overcome the food shortages and price hike tendency. This technology would not only raise yield but also enhance nutrition abilities of plants. Hydroponics can be a futuristic technology for Pakistan to ensure proper supply of vegetable and fruits crops as it uses 70 percent to 90 percent less water than irrigated soil based agriculture. No water was lost in the ground or absorbed by weeds or lost in evaporation, officials in Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (MINFAL) said. A website relating to agri news reported that a hydroponic pilot project has already been launched in Rawat (Islamabad) under the name bio-blitz over just five acres of land. The state-of-the- art five-acre Green House facility is producing hydroponic tomatoes of all varieties including tangy, elegant, cherry and others. If hydroponics farming technology is introduced properly, then country can triple the revenues earned on agriculture exports and the country could be a huge power player in the market because nobody else in the region is using high-tech hydroponics. The officials said in the pilot project, a Dutch hydoponic expert was working with the team training Pakistani staff on how to run a hydroponic greenhouse. According to them, a high tech hydroponic facility was more expensive to set up than soil farming but once it is set up, operating and maintenance costs were low and the very high and definite yields means that invested money would be recovered in one year.
Hydroponic farming to help achieve Agri targetsCountries, which were world leaders in hydroponics employ what was called a 'cluster approach where land is allocated just for hydroponic farming practiced by different farmers. To develop a viable hydroponics industry, Pakistan desperately needs to improve its infrastructure facilities, such as availability of electricity and land. Greenhouses need a constant supply of power but the situation in Pakistan is not encouraging, they added. Agriculture scientists said there are two main types of hydroponics culture, namely solution culture and medium culture. The solution culture excludes roots as source of nutrition, while the medium culture is based on roots as part of the process. The solution culture method is further divided into three types - static solution culture, continuous flow solution culture, and aeroponics. The medium culture, on the other hand, is based on medium through which the root is routed - sand culture, gravel culture or rock wool culture. These media of nutrition are again sub-divided into two categories - sub-irrigation and top irrigation. In all these techniques, mostly plastic is used for hydroponic reservoirs, though other materials have also been used, which include concrete, glass, metal, vegetable solids and wood. Experts advised that the containers should block light to prevent algae growth in the nutrient solution. Hydroponics is a method of growing plants, using mineral nutrient solutions without soil. Terrestrial plants may be grown with their roots in the mineral nutrient solution only or in an inert medium, such as perlite, gravel, or mineral wool. This technology was discovered in the 19th century. In this technology plants absorb essential mineral nutrients as inorganic ions in water. In natural conditions, soil acts as a mineral nutrient reservoir, but the soil itself is not essential to plant growth. Hydroponics is also a standard technique in biology research and teaching. Researchers have obtained groundbreaking results in various countries, however the process has proved it to be thoroughly practical, having an edge over conventional methods of horticulture. Talking about the benefits of the technology, the officials said it saves water, freedom from soil diseases and weeds and less labour needed and cost effective. Scientists agreed that hydroponics fruits and vegetables are sweeter and more luscious than those grown in ordinary soil are. The technology is being utilised around the globe, including the US, European Union (EU) and African countries. Repeated pricing studies have shown that only high-quality garden type vegetables like tomato, cucumber, potato, sweet peppers, melon, and specialty lettuce can cover costs or give a return in hydroponics systems. As the consumer becomes increasingly aware of quality differences, especially the high quality of tomatoes, cucumbers, and leafy vegetables coming from hydroponics, the demand will increase. This, along with the increased emphasis on eating more vegetables for dietary and health reasons, will surely help the hydroponics industry.
Source: http://www.nation.com.pk
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