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ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

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Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#31

Post by Sophistifunk »

tomp wrote: post #30
elcritch wrote: post #19

I worked for the company that developed the technology. Personally not much of a green-thumb myself, but it's great to see how much you can grow with vertical towers, either in a greenhouse or indoors with LED lights. You can grow about 3-4x what you would get with a flat grow bed for many plants [1]. While the towers are great, the real trick is the grow media as you want it robust enough to survive while not suffoc…

Do you have any idea, why do people concentrate on aquaponics, not aeroponics? Is it just simply easier to implement, or better researched? Or is it actually better (higher yield, closed-loop system, ...)?

Hydroponics would be the alternative to aeroponics, I think? Aquaponics usually means a hydroponics system in a loop with fish tanks.

Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#33

Post by pault »

tomp wrote: post #30
elcritch wrote: post #19

I worked for the company that developed the technology. Personally not much of a green-thumb myself, but it's great to see how much you can grow with vertical towers, either in a greenhouse or indoors with LED lights. You can grow about 3-4x what you would get with a flat grow bed for many plants [1]. While the towers are great, the real trick is the grow media as you want it robust enough to survive while not suffoc…

Do you have any idea, why do people concentrate on aquaponics, not aeroponics? Is it just simply easier to implement, or better researched? Or is it actually better (higher yield, closed-loop system, ...)?

Sibling is correct. Aquaponics is a (partially) closed loop system where fish provide nitrogen for the roots, and the plants clean the water for the fish. You still need to feed the fish and sometimes balance the water pH.

Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#34

Post by jseliger »

gonesilent wrote: post #2

$399 for $25 in plastic. Go to home depot and buy some rain plastic gutters.

This is reminiscent of the people who ask, "Why would anyone buy a pre-loaded Linux laptop, Dell's Developer Editions, when you can already install it on an older Thinkpad?"

Service, support, ease of use and setup, and, in the case of something that might be visible in a readily trafficked area, aesthetics.

If those things are not valuable to you (and they may not be) then you are not the target audience.

Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#35

Post by gullyfur »

zo1 wrote: post #17
gullyfur wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the best DIY video on building something like this? I don't even know where to start.

I saw this guy a while back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzcC6zkDDiY I think he got a lot of flack for pointing out that the zip-grow towers are way overpriced and you can DIY them yourself reasonably well. There really isn't anything too-complicated about the ZipGrow towers, other than that they use a sponge as a media.

Thank you!

Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#36

Post by pault »

heurist wrote: post #8
flagada wrote: post #3

I don't really understand the whole "urban agriculture" crowd. People do often live in crowded cities, but there's plenty of space to grow stuff on outside of cities. It's the same kind of thinking that gave us the solad roads (which were, predictably, a catastrophic failure).

Food production in US is increasingly consolidated into hands of large agriculture corporations. Why not decentralize, make the system more robust to shock (look what's happening with grocery stores today)?

The grocery stores are low on stock because of selfish people panic buying, not because there's not enough food. The supply chain is still functioning normally.

Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#37

Post by pault »

Retric wrote: post #18
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If (a really big IF) solar panels can get efficient enough while LEDs also become more efficient, in theory plants grown indoors being fed by LEDs attuned to the precise portions of the spectrum they need with the whole thing powered by the solar panels, you could get a better yield than outdoor growing. Figure out cost effective fusion, things get even better. But neither is the case right now. As far as the urban a…

Until you genetically engineer a more efficient plant and your back to a net loss even assuming absolutely free panels and LED’s etc. Vertical farming only really works as either artistic preference for maximum visual appeal or the kind of science fiction where you assume only a small handful of technology advanced.

If you can genetically engineer a more efficient plant for growing in a field, you can genetically engineer a plant that's more efficient to grow under LEDs, no? I don't see how a hypothetical breakthrough in generic engineering makes vertical farming a mad fantasy. There are certain crops that can't be grown in high yield monocultures and have to be transported from other parts of the world. I'm sure there are many cases where the math works, and I don't think most people are talking about growing corn indoors when they talk about vertical farming.

Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#38

Post by Retric »

pault wrote: post #37
Retric wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until you genetically engineer a more efficient plant and your back to a net loss even assuming absolutely free panels and LED’s etc. Vertical farming only really works as either artistic preference for maximum visual appeal or the kind of science fiction where you assume only a small handful of technology advanced.

If you can genetically engineer a more efficient plant for growing in a field, you can genetically engineer a plant that's more efficient to grow under LEDs, no? I don't see how a hypothetical breakthrough in generic engineering makes vertical farming a mad fantasy. There are certain crops that can't be grown in high yield monocultures and have to be transported from other parts of the world. I'm sure there are many…

If a genetically engineered plant gathered energy equally across the full spectrum then frequency shifting using solar > LED is absolutely pointless even at 100% efficiency. Solar panels and leaves are solving the same problem using the same physical laws.

But that’s hardly required as solar panels to LED’s can’t reach 100% efficiency. Further, the limited lifespan of solar panels and LED’s means you need to cover their construction etc which requires resources.

Ultimately, looking at theoretical limits it’s simply a net loss.

PS: Monoculture is far from required, it’s an outgrowth of current automation rather than having any theoretical advantage.

Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#39

Post by Pfhreak »

gonesilent wrote: post #2

$399 for $25 in plastic. Go to home depot and buy some rain plastic gutters.

Having built a system in my basement to grow basil, spinach, and lettuce, there's a whole lot more to it than $25 in plastic.

First, you should use food grade plastic, then there are lights, a pump, shelving, growing medium, fertilizer, ph adjustment, extension cords, timers, cups, air tubing, and air stone, and a bunch of other stuff.

Then you have to get it all home, double and triple check you are doing it correctly.

I don't think I spent $500, but no way anyone can put together an equivalent system for $25. Like most things, there's a lot more complexity than people realize.

Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#40

Post by orasis »

I own 20 ZipGrow towers and have become quite disillusioned with them across 3 growing seasons.

The biggest problem is that there is nothing to buffer moisture on the roots if there is an intermittent problem.

You might get a nice crop of basil growing and then a clogged emitter for 12 hours can be the death of those plants.

Here are all of the failure modes I have experienced:

- pump dying - Leak in base causing all water gone in 24 hours - clogged emitters - water choosing off route through tower and not hitting the plants on top - emitters getting blown off causing water to spray outside tower - circuit breakers trip from pump

Overall I’ve probably lost half of everything I’ve planted in a zipgrow.

A professional operation with a daily maintenance routine could probably use them, but they are no panacea.

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