Vertical Farming.... (And could it Profitable)

k_squared

Just looking for your take here folks, speak your mind.

Kind of an interesting idea, I'll sure say that.

lisab

Link, please

MotoH

que?

waht

The crops grow taller that way. Hence more yield.

Evo

Yeah, I guess if you could keep it from falling over, you could plant more per horizontal footage. I'd hate to try to get a harvesting machine up that though.

k_squared

Sheesh

http://www.verticalfarm.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming

"Farmscraper" is the key word here, people...

Proton Soup

verticals tend to cast shadows. you've only got so much energy/m^2 to work with, and going vertical isn't going to help much, i'd think.

Proton Soup

oh, now that's just silly unless you're growing mushrooms. look at energy use on the wiki link.

k_squared

What about genetically modifying plants to use less sunlight? Okay, now were talking major government intervention....

How much solar/wind/bio power could the thing produce.... is is POSSIBLE to make up for it? Imagine if the world suffered environmental cataclysm (volcanic winter, nuclear exchange, giant asteroid, global warming), you get the idea: food in these things would be a lot more resilient if society could remain intact enough to continue power distribution. Which would only be true if we got a lot of food from these things.

Or consider nuclear, other 'sustainable' forms of power...

or that there are 6 billion 700 million people and a finite supply of accessible, arable land. And that modern agriculture reduces trace nutrients in the food (nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium, remember?) stuff is great, but NOT everything your supposed to get from a plant.

Like despite fundamental energy needs, could this simply be more efficient? Well, as wikipedia says, they would need to do a cost analysis... try the criticisms section for details. Seems to be what your talking about.

Its not quite morning yet... not tired. Or mabye we could replace all crop farms with solar farms and THEN go vertical;)

russ_watters

Agreed.

Er, wait - in the future, are buildings and energy both going to be free?

Argentum Vulpes

My understanding of this idea, and why some people wanted it, was that it would allow people in dense urban areas to get food in a local area so that the supply line was cut. Also the big reason was to keep GM types of food out of the supply chain.

Like Proton Soup pointed out the energy requirements for these projects are huge. Also putting things like solar panels over the side of the building make it dark inside so good luck growing plants. With wind it would be lucky if more then 1 turbine could be put on top of the building. As for bio mass it is a one use crop usage, so either food or fuel, no having your cake and eating it too.

rootX

I thought OP was referring to conservation farming.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8582353.stm

Proton Soup

oh, the shame!

hypatia

These are very cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espalier

Evo

This is a great video on the Disney vertical and hydroponic gardens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipy1tF5DU-Y

Proton Soup

those would be great for peaches and pears. the peach trees we had when i was a kid got so overloaded with fruit that the branches would snap off. and the pear tree grew tall and spindly and would flop over. figs are less of a problem, but could make harvesting easier.

zomgwtf

I've gotta say Evo, that is quite amazing. I wanna go to see this now . That lemon waas HUGEEEE