well our population on this planet will be peaking in due time... with this comes a greater need for food... growing crops horizontally on land is inefficient and destroys ecosystems, on top of the amount of energy that is expended to do it and ship the final products. do you think that this will be the future of agriculture on our planet- MarkitScience: Vertical Farming furthermore, with all the talk on these forums about growing crops on the moon, or even mars, we need to become experts of doing it down here first!
No, it's never going to happen. Growing crops should be inefficient. The search for ever more efficient ways to grow crops is exactly what is destroying agriculture. The future is local and organic, using traditional methods and human labor, possibly animal labor. How many tomatoes do you need to sell to pay off the loan on a specially built vertical concrete tower? It's madness, America blowing green smoke up it's ass.
we need to search for more efficient ways in order to meet the demands of our booming population. vertical farms would be local and organic... if you live in an urban center, how much more local could you get than the building right next door? and the loan you would pay to build and maintain a concrete tower would be peanuts compared to the cost currently being spent on use and maintenance of tractors, plows, pesticides, and shipping the products thousands of miles from the fields to the cities where people live. did you know the average fruit/vegetable found in American supermarkets travels over 1500 miles to get there? SMH you are right, local is the future... but the meaning of "local" will mean "city" for almost more than 80% of us... if the future of crop growing is local, then we need to learn how to grow them in cities. IMO this idea is a great start.
which for me is even more of a reason to hurry up and get the infrastructure up for some of these vertical farms... if not we can forget about food being brought to us in cities. in the case, i'd expect the old "survival of the fittest" to kick in and force people to leave cities and go to where the food is in rural areas
sure there is... irrigation will occur similarly as it does in normal farms, just that it will start from the top and runoff water will be filtered down the levels of crops. on the roof and sides of the building all the rainwater will be collected, filtered, and stored. it might actually be more effective in terms of water usage than horizontal farming, in that agricultural runoff will be virtually eliminated by recycling excess water. and not only can they collect runoff water from below the soil on different levels, but they'll also be able to collecting water released from the top during evapotranspiration. also just think about how much water is wasted in neighboring buildings through the use of bathrooms, kitchens, etc... this water will also be collected and converted into potable plant water.
Good idea, but far-fetched sci-fi ideas, don't seem to be needed so much yet, well unless somebody can figure out how to produce more food cheaper? I'm very pro-population, so I am open to such ideas as to stacking people or farms vertically, if it should ever become necessary. But so far, God appears to be supplying our resource needs, but we have serious economic and political issues hindering adequate production, mining, drilling oil, distribution, and poverty reduction. I love to see humans colonizing more worlds, in sci-fi movies, but see little practicality yet. Solutions needed now are simple enough. More indoor flush toilets, electricity for clean cooking without millions of smoky cooking fires in growing megacities, and a little urban sprawl here and there. Demographers only predict but a few more billions, but who knows? Perhaps they're assuming continued use of the awful unnatural shoddy contraceptives, which I wish to make the case against expecting people to use. Encourage large families worldwide, so that far more people may live.
That's not like a normal farm, where rain lands on a huge area and slowly flows to the water table. Pumps would be needed to pump water from underground to the top of these structures, and that takes energy. Water is very heavy. Also, normal tasks like harvesting could not be mechanized. This is a fine idea for a pretty garden but not for practical farming. Millions of these structures would need to be created, and that it an energy intensive proposition. They would blight the landscape, and they would not be lighted on one or more sides.
i just meant that irrigation would be taking place, since u suggested that there would be no water in a vertical tower. the method of irrigation would need to be adjusted though... yes pumps would be required, just as pumps are required for irrigation in horizontal farming... however, the rain water captured at the top and sides of the buildings would first reach the top levels then make there way down through irrigation ducts via gravitational forces... so if water were to be pumped, the lowest levels would likely be receiving it first, hence using less energy... but thats all speculation i dont know how they would "blight the landscape".. considering they'd be placed inside urban centers, where there isnt too much asthetically pleasing about the landscape, a little green visible through glass wouldn't hurt... and their location would be chosen in advance to optimize for sun exposure, they wouldnt just be plopped in a shady corner
If the rain needed to grow the crops in an ordinary field lands on the entire area of the field, we should assume that the water required for an equivalent number of plants stacked in a vertical orientation would still require the same area of collection. Therefore, the roof of such a structure would be an inadequate catch basin.
what if more rain falls on the field than is required for the crops to grow (which is often the case)? what if torrential rains flood a field of crops and destroy them? this doesn't happen in vertical farms. a lot of excess water isn't used to its fullest potential in horizontal farms... this where vertical farming kicks in. excess runoff water is captured and used to nourish other crops. also, the roof isn't the only catch basin, the side of the buildings catches water as well... but i never suggested that rain would be the only source of water for crops in vertical farms. just as it is not the only source of water for horizontal farms. pumps are used in both cases to irrigate the soil.
I'm assuming from the picture you would be using some form of renewable enery resource for the pumping process and light? Would two wind turbines provide enough energy to create an ideal growing environment for the crops? I have no problem with the idea of water filtering down. Determination of sufficient water needs could reduce wasted water and a cyclic closed system would reduce losses and raise efficiency. I honestly can't see yet another building in a filed of buildings as a blight on the landscape. People generally find greenery to be a calming influence so maybe having a partially glass building full of plants will help the population.
I'm not sure what Spidergoats apprehension towards improving agricultural methods is, it seems to be from the viewpoint of a holistic naturalist. Organic is not viable...practical...or even efficient. Transportation of resources simply supplants product transportation. Not to mention, does that mean the entire world has to move? How about those living in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada...some of California. Do the 2nd and 5th largest cities need to evacuate? Unfortunately, the old ways are not the best ways. Increased control of the environment to grow crops increases success. Agriculturalists have dedicated themselves to finding precise measurements from everything to soil seepage to eddy diffusivity covariances. The result has been astounding soil preservation improvements coupled with water conservation and increased yield. While modifications on a specific soil have decreasing returns as degradation on an uncontrolled soil is inevitable, the same would not be true of an entirely enclosed subterranean (as relative to the crop stock) structure. Moisture injection would be more effective as would nutrient infusion. Traditional rotation methods allow soil erosion to be especially heavy in off-times as surfaces are barren and easily transportable, soil modification happens primarily in the first 3 feet in this instance. It's very difficult to make it profitable when adding equal soil upon the degraded surfaces and over time bedrock and calcified or acidic surfaces are reached. Ph values become critical and the land is barren to all but the weeds. Controlled environments would allow for easier vertical tillage and soil rotation by simply dropping the soil from the bottom of an upper layer to the top of a lower layer and transporting excess from the surface to the top. Coupling this with all of the drastically reduced evaporation through wind turbulence primarily associated with surface frictions...water, soil. nutrients, and virtually every other resource would be conserved. I say it's not only viable, but a positive idea.
To market to markit, I haven't had a chance to check out the website as yet. Vertical farming using and utilising existing buildings is pure common sense. I've got some ideas, I'll add some more later, about to cook dinner, * reaches outside window to pluck some fresh herbs*
Aquaponics is similar to this and uses only recycled water to nourish the plants. Aquaponics /ˈækwəˈpɒnɨks/ is the symbiotic cultivation of plants and aquatic animals in a recirculating environment. Aquatic animal effluent (for example fish waste) accumulates in water as a by-product of keeping them in a closed system or tank (for example a recirculating aquaculture system). The effluent-rich water becomes high in plant nutrients but this is correspondingly toxic to the aquatic animal. Plants are grown in a way (for example a hydroponic system) that enables them to utilize the nutrient-rich water. The plants take up the nutrients, reducing or eliminating the water's toxicity for the aquatic animal. The water, now clean, is returned to the aquatic animal environment and the cycle continues. Aquaponic systems do not discharge or exchange water. The systems rely on the relationship between the aquatic animals and the plants to maintain the environment. Water is only added to replace water loss from absorption by the plants, evaporation into the air, or the removal of biomass from the system. Aquaponic systems vary in size from small indoor units to large commercial units. They can use fresh or salt water depending on the type of aquatic animal and vegetation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics
