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ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

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Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#61

Post by AngryData »

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…

There is no need to breed plants specifically for LED lights. All the newest and most efficient and cost effective LEDs are white spectrum now and emulate the sun far closer than any other light ever has. What matters is how efficiently can you make the lights run, and right now it is pretty damn good getting about 200 lumens per watts on those grow LEDs (versus about half that for a shitty standard household LED)

Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#62

Post by syntaxing »

orasis wrote: post #40

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…

I want to get my feet wet with hydroponics because my daughter loves fresh produce and I love the idea growing her favorite fruits and veggies. Do you now how Zipgrow compares to Aerogarden (the "farm" size one).

Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#63

Post by syntaxing »

orasis wrote: post #55
elasticventures wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth mentioning that the facebook forums for hydroponics farming are full of people trying to sell these things second hand with no explanation 'why'.

Yeah, they were quite expensive and I'll probably just end up giving them away.

Would you happen to be in California? I would love to buy one from you (after this whole shelter in period)!

Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#64

Post by AngryData »

TheSoftwareGuy wrote: post #16
TACIXAT wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appeals to me. Even if the cost was higher, building the capability locally seems very valuable. As well, not all costs are monetary. If the pollution is lower (e.g. from eliminating transportation) it may be worth paying the higher price. Another appeal is knowing exactly what goes into your food.

Most of the pollution from food production comes from actually producing the food. Things like tractors and stuff use a lot of fuel. Furthermore, putting farms in urban buildings means that some urban businesses or residences will ha e to be moved further out, increasing pollution. In reality, this would move the pollution to the urban areas, and not reduce it. Lastly, I can’t think of a reason that you’d know more a…

No, most of the pollution from food production is from fertilizer. Nearly all commercial fertilizer sold is artificially derived from fossil fuels and pollutes just as bad as burning it. Over 60% of the world's total crop yield is the direct result of fossil fuel-derived fertilizer. Removing the fossil-fuel component would make fertilizer production alone rival the current total energy demands of the entire world on that single task.

Tractors are moving tens of thousands of pounds of material at a time and are extremely efficient for the energy they utilize. Tractors may seem like they are using ass tons of fuel from looks alone, people see the huge engine and big cab and chunks of large steel and think it just eats fuel to produce crazy tons of power, but many consumer cars have more horsepower than tractors and frivolously spend fuel on saving mere seconds in both acceleration and braking which are huge wastes. Tractors don't accelerate for long periods of time or waste tons of energy braking all the time just for personal convenience. Tractors are just geared down super low and built ultra-robust with zero concern for physical size. The run better and more efficient than car motors specifically because they didn't have to make any trade offs for compactness, weight, or engine and transmission form. How many cars have turbos and super-chargers? How many of them are tuned for fuel efficiency rather than peak performance? Tractors commonly have them for the sole purpose of fuel efficiency, they never lacked power in the first place because of the lack of other restraints.

Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#65

Post by ShakataGaNai »

syntaxing wrote: post #62
orasis wrote: post #40

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…

I want to get my feet wet with hydroponics because my daughter loves fresh produce and I love the idea growing her favorite fruits and veggies. Do you now how Zipgrow compares to Aerogarden (the "farm" size one).

The Aerogarden Farm and ZipGrow 2-Tower setup are fairly close in price (About $600 USD). Beyond that they're fairly different. The ZipGrow is certainly targeting a more prosumer/commercial demographic where as the Aerogarden, even the farm, tops out at high-end prosumer.

If you're an average person who isn't interested in dedicating their life to hydroponics, the Aerogarden is going to be the safer bet. It's small-ish, it's simple, it has a nice touch screen and beeps reminders at you.

Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#66

Post by Barrin92 »

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 system looks pretty damn robust given that we've just shut the global economy down and the food still keeps coming in. Maybe with some hiccups but that's complaining at a high level.

The reason decentralization doesn't make a lot of sense is because we need to produce food cheap and at scale to feed the world. Putting thousands of dollars into vertical farming equipment that doesn't fit into the apartments of most people on the planet is kind of silly.

There's also simply division of labour at work here. It's uneconomical for large portions of the population to spend their time farming.

It's essentially just a recreational hobby for wealthy people or maybe reasonable on a Mars Colony, but here it does not make much sense.

Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#67

Post by dublinben »

vangelis wrote: post #4

Get yourself some plastic containers, a Rain Bird starter kit, some LEDs, and you've got yourself your own indoor grow op for much cheaper.

There's an entire community building these makeshift "space buckets" for growing plants indoors.

https://www.spacebuckets.com/

https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceBuckets/

Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#68

Post by eurekaSky »

doctoboggan wrote: post #23
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…

I thought the technology looked familiar. I had been following the Bright Agrotech people on YouTube for a while, they produced great content for those interested in indoor hydroponics for the home grower. Do you know what happened to the company? Did they go bankrupt and have to liquidate their IP?

They were bought out by a company from Cali. Bright Agrotech started in Laramie Wyoming.

Their first "major" greenhouses were behind the building that my company was in. Really interesting people.

Re: ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system

#70

Post by atomi »

Pfhreak wrote: post #39
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 correct…

Perhaps not NFT. But you can get into other forms of hydro real cheaply if you're thrifty.
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