Flushing hydroponic systems: nutrient imbalance, waste, and an alternative solution

The main reasons for flushing a hydroponic system is nutrient imbalance. Hydroponic fertilizers are specifically formulated for specific crops (you can buy nutrients for a type of crop, like greens or flowers), but each farmer grows a different combination of crops in different conditions, and the ratios…

BBC

How to grow food in a concrete jungle

Guillaume Fourdinier has lived in Paris for six years, but he still misses the taste of the fresh cereal grains, beets, carrots and more that grow on his family's farm in Verton. There, in northern France's countryside, eating locally is a way of life – not simply a trend or a sticker on an apple at the…

Photo 17690284 © Panpote | Dreamstime.com

EU: "Hydroponics should be labeled as organic"

Earlier this year, many vertical farms, especially hydroponic farms and their investors received a cold shower after an EU decision. Although hydroponic farming offers high-quality, pesticide-free, green, nutrition products it hasn’t been acknowledged by the European Parlament’s Committee on Agriculture…

Growcer unit supports rising Ottowa student business

The 2020/21 school year is the third year The University of Ottawa has grown greens right on campus. The University uses a Growcer unit to grow greens for its dining hall and catering services. During a normal school year, uOttawa is able to easily consume 100 percent of what’s produced from a Growcer…

ABC Action News

Students maintain hydroponic and solar-fueled garden at Plant High School

Martin Ramirez loves to get his hands dirty. "This is all about teamwork," says Martin, as he checks a pepper plant for bugs. "That's the best part!" The Plant High School junior is taking part in an innovative program at the Tampa school that's introducing students with special needs to possible career…

"Vertical farms are sprouting up across Californian homes

For years, Taylor O’Sullivan dreamed of growing her own vegetables. But living in a 2nd floor studio apartment in Newport Beach, she realized that was a hard row to hoe. “I thought I was going to have to wait until I was retired and moved to the country to have a garden,” O'Sullivan said. But then a…

Evening Express

Elevate your meals with microgreens produced by Aberdeenshire’s Vertical Shoots Urban Farms

Both qualified engineers working in the oil, gas and service sector, Brindha and Sathya were eager to switch things up and start with a clean slate. This was to involve growing microgreens in their Westhill-based home. And now, two years on, their produce can be seen in a line-up of local stores and is…

LocalDVM

Indoor farming project promotes sustainability in Montgomery County

Getting out to the grocery store can be a hassle, and it can be quite expensive, but what if you could just grow what you needed from the comfort of your own kitchen? The Food Grown Home project is a futuristic take on today’s problems, promoting sustainability into the future and addressing the current…

Politics in the city: Councilors push for partnership with hydroponic nonprofit

2Gether We Eat, a new youth-focused nonprofit in the city, seeks to address issues of "food deserts" and food insecurity here in Worcester through promoting hydroponic farming. Co-founder Charles Luster spoke to the City Council this week about the possibility of forging a partnership to encourage…

Study on outdoor vertical farming on textile substrates

Vertical farming may solve the problem that in many regions of the world, more area would be necessary to produce food, than it is available. Especially in large cities and other densely crowded areas, vertical farming can provide an efficient and eco-friendly way to feed people. While indoor vertical…

"Thinking and growing in the box" a brother-sister hydroponic team

 A brother-sister team has taken the mechanics of farming out of the field and into a freight container. “We are growing beautiful plants without the sun; there’s no soil, and so it’s all a closed-loop water system,” Britt Decker, co-owner of Fifth Season FARM, said. “We use non-GMO seeds, completely free…

Paul Buckowski/Times Union

Boys and Girls Clubs grow lettuces in hydroponic farm

The equivalent of a 2-acre farm that grows 500 heads of lettuce a week hides inside a 40-foot-long metal box in a parking lot near the police station in downtown Troy. The container farm, as it's called, or Freight Farm, after the Boston-based company that first introduced hydroponic growing systems in…

Hydroponic grower readies greens for March release

Leafy greens are officially growing at a new hydroponic farm in the Midwest. Pure Green Farms is now growing its four lettuce varieties for its inaugural SKUs at its four-acre farm and looks forward to the products being in stores starting in March. The greens will be used in the company’s four lettuce…

Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon

Growing up green: delivering lettuce on the spot

Amid a light January snowfall in Whitefish, Dustin Lang dragged open the metal door of a nondescript shipping container sitting in the driveway of The Farm at River’s Bend. Inside, a blinding array of red and blue LED lights cast a violet glow on rows of hanging panels covered with a variety of salad…

Two friends raise vertical farm in Malahide, Ireland

When salesman Jack Hussey finishes his work day, he closes the laptop, leaves his home in Malahide and walks 10 minutes down the road. At the bottom of his friend’s farm sits an outhouse with a coldroom which now hosts his side business, Upfarm. A farm that goes upwards. Imagine a shelf rack, says…

Cynthia R. Berns

Hydroponic growing containers popping up in Alaska's rural villages

Several years ago, a grant from the Administration for Native Americans (ANA) helped establish farms in Kodiak’s rural villages of Port Lions, Ouzinkie, Old Harbor and Larsen Bay. The farms now bloom with fruits and vegetables every summer. They provide a critical source of fresh food for communities…

Future of farming on display at Hamburg hydroponic lettuce operation

Jason Henry says his little lettuce operation in Hamburg is just "an experiment" adding "we've got it scheduled so there is a fresh crop of plants coming out every week". What's remarkable about Jason's set-up in his words "it's outfitted to produce 40,000 heads of lettuce per year, over 16,000 pounds of…

Israeli company launches app and device to help hydroponic home-growers

Growee provides smart solutions for the home grower. The company’s innovative development enables it to grow plants via a specially designated application and provides access to the hydroponic growing method that a simple grower perceives as too complicated. Via special sensors, the electronic system…

© Stephanie Bileski | Dreamstime.com

"Bioponics, a viable and sustainable agricultural solution"

Growing organically – a goal that many farms are moving towards or have, at the very least, considered. For soilless farms in the US, the contentious issue of organic hydroponics classification remains at the forefront of the industry, with the recirculation of nutrients back into the soil being one of…

'High potential for soil-less agriculture'

Hydroponic cultivation isn't new. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, dating to the 6th century B.C., may be a precursor to today’s hydroponics if they existed. (Historians disagree on that as well as where the gardens were.) Then, as now, technology is a key to giving growers, not Mother Nature, more…

Hydroponic indoor farm among first tenants in Piqua's Zolo building

A unique farming business has set up shop in downtown Piqua, and if all goes to plan the concept will be among the first tenants in a historic building being redeveloped in the city core. Fifth Season Farm, founded by brother-sister duo Britt Decker and Laura Jackson, launched a hydroponic indoor farm…

GrowSpec

Combining hydroponic and aeroponic in vertical farming

Generally speaking, horticulture operations can be quite expensive to operate; yet, growers can rely on hundreds of years of knowledge to improve the efficiency, so that those costs go down. At the same time, the cannabis industry cannot rely on such knowledge, and it is not uncommon to see cultivation…

Carroll’s Kitchen

Why chefs prefer hydroponic produce

Chefs are unlike most food consumers. They spend hours thinking, planning, and experimenting with ingredients, going through tens, if not hundreds, of iterations on a simple dish before serving it to their audience of eaters. So, when we wanted to know what people really think about eating hydroponic…

“Sharing technology is the only way the industry will grow”

“There is a lack of know-how amongst farmers to apply those techniques in a successful way,” says Joe Swartz, Vice president and Lead horticulturalist at AmHydro. In every situation, according to Joe, from geography to the skill of the grower or climate control, all play into what types of technology…

Instagram: The Shilpa Shetty

Indian actress shows off her soilless backyard farm

Indian actress Shilpa Shetty gave a sneak peek of her hydroponic or soil-less farm to fans. Shilpa revealed that she has grown vegetables of her salad in just 25 days on the farm, which is her newfound passion. Sharing a video of her farm on Instagram, she wrote: “They say, ‘you are what you eat’. So,…

Common mistakes in setting up hydroponics

Starting a hydroponics garden is thrilling. It's an exciting project where you can enjoy the progress your plants make over time. However, producing perfect plants requires some skill and attention to detail that take time to develop. Even if you have a lot of guidance in setting up your grow space, you…