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Philips Is Revolutionizing Urban Farming With New GrowWise Indoor Farm
Kristine Lofgren writes: With arable land dwindling and the cost — both economically and environmentally — of growing and transporting food increasing, it's time to redefine farming. So Philips is creating a revolution with their new GrowWise indoor farm, which uses customized 'light recipes' in high-tech cells to grow plants that don't need pesticides or chlorine washes, and use a fraction of the water that traditional farming requires. The system can churn out 900 pots of basil a year in just one square meter of floor space, and bees keep things humming year-round for farming that is truly local, even in the middle of a city.
Serious question. (And yes I know they contain carbon.)
I mean, normally I'm really against organic crops because they take up more space per person fed, which isn't so great for environmental preservation. This stuff on the other hand, doesn't need pesticides or anything. Seems very hippie-friendly, but on the other hand they aren't going to help out bees or whatever. Not sure how expensive it'll be, but with this kind of space efficiency (and quite likely better quality output) sure I'd pay the 'organic' markup for it.
The new 234m facility, one of the world’s largest, will concentrate its research to optimize growth recipes for leafy vegetables, strawberries and herbs.
Hmm, what kind of herbs ?
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
... This is what passes for innovation? Go to youtube and you'll see an endless procession of pot growers that have been doing that since always.
I'm a big fan of urban farming but... the real trick with that is going to be using the "sun" to grow stuff.
Part of the issue is that buildings are not built to grow things. And to really do proper urban farming, they have to either be modified or built from the ground up with that in mind.
So... green houses on the roofs of buildings would be one thing to think about. Large insulated ground to ceiling windows facing south in the northern hemisphere and north in the southern hemisphere... with the idea that the whole sun facing portion of every building be filled with plants.
Permaculture is something that has to be looked at and ideally looked at from the context of urban gardening. Most food producing plants are bred for maximum production with maximum sunlight. Often an urban farm is going to have less than perfect sunlight or be outright shaded. And that has to be taken into consideration with the sorts of plants you choose to plant.
Then you've got hydroponics... which is a great idea for indoor farming because you have fewer issues with insects and can control things a little more tightly.
Etc. This product they're thinking about selling... I can't see anyone outside of some government goofball on expense account buying this thing.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
After you go through that much basil, you'll have the munchies something fierce, and a small area like that probably can't grow enough food to satisfy you.
Oh, actual basil. Got it.
Urban farming, "GrowWise", definitely doesn't sound like "pots of *basil*" is exactly the right market for it. More like something else that also starts the same way, but has two fewer words.
Great timing for it, too, what with the burgeoning legalization movement all across the country (but, often, only for personal use, not for sale, making logistics difficult unless you are actually growing it yourself).
Have you been tuning the wavelength to maximise growth and efficiency for each plant species?
Can you "churn out 900 pots of basil a year in just one square meter of floor space"?
Also, I'm pretty sure Home Depot sells at least half a dozen variations on this product already.
If Slashdot dropped every article about an actual product (as opposed to news or science stories), we'd have even less content...
So much is one "pot" anyway? Is that unit of weight? volume? altitude?
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And tomatoes can be grown in the city, but how can I make Urban Mozzarella? I don't think my landlord will let me keep an Italian Mediterranean buffalo in my studio apartment.. Maybe I can build a stall in my parking spot.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
There're lots of examples of prior art local to me, if anywhere else that has a mains electricity supply, and that's pot farms.
Here, they tend to explode as people use halogen lights at silly power densities (like 6kW/sq.m) and lag the shit out of their lofts in an attempt to conceal them from police helicopter FLIRs, then wonder why they catch fire.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
The entire process is not entirely dependent on natural gas, just the Hydrogen that it can supply
The natural gas is used to supply the Hydrogen (H), while the Nitrogen (N) is pulled from the atmosphere to produce Ammonia (NH3)
The Haber-Bosch process has been implemented with Coal as the H source, which would seem to leave the door open for using Hydrogen Gas derived from Solar or Nuclear electric processes
I do not know what the 'buffer' is for Ammonium production and how many years lead time it would take to produce adequate amounts with hydrogen gas as a source
What I have seen is the fossil fuel companies attempt to wring every last dollar out of their investments before willingly losing market position, particularly to solar or nuclear power
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Doesn't the government still pay farmers to NOT grow food as part of a subsidy program to reduce supply and thereby artificially raise prices?
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Were you BORN that DUMB? Or did you have to sit an exam?
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
It's OK. I'm from Colorado, I know what you really meant.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Where are we gonna put the solar panels?
How about on the roofs that don't have gardens on them? Not like we're going to put a garden on every roof. At some point there is really no excuse for not putting solar panels or gardens or something productive on rooftops.
I get the feeling he's growing only one specific type of "plant" for "medicinal" uses...
Help! I am a self-aware entity trapped in an abstract function!
a lot of dependencies in the answer:
How many plants per pot?
How old is each seedling before it is counted as a "plant"?
I can make an aragula seed shoot in two days. I'll be harvesting in three weeks. In one square metre I can have well over a thousand plants on the go. I've done this. How many plants can I produce in a year? How many seeds ya got?
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Unless it's the ratty organic version it's all hydroponic already. And it is grown in greenhouses which are cheap and easy to build and can be put just about anywhere. Then for running cost you don't need to be running lights.
Even if you argue arable land was running out, which I also call bullshit on, there is cubic buttloads of crap land you can stick greenhouses on and grow your crops there at a fraction of the cost of running leds. This is what a basil farm really looks like - http://seedstock.com/wp-conten...
Now if we are talking corn or grain or sugar there is NO way you can get the density needed to put it in a building.
In some locations, we have underwater hothouses, due to a lack of arable land (e.g. mountain states and provinces in the West). In other places, there's not a whole heck of a lot of sun, so using the energy from nearby wind and hydro, you can easily run LED to grow plants in seasons where it might not otherwise be viable.
Buildings can be built to grow things. Here at the UW, we have many buildings with green roofs and green walls, and some have entire bioenvelopes.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
...in the future (now actually) we're going to have to produce at least 5 percent of the produce in our very own homes.
...but I feel this is VITAL to our survival.
Apartments must be designed with indoor greenhouses as a part of the design. To keep it low on pesticides and insects, hydroponic farming is an essential technique, what Phillips is doing isn't new by any standard, but they're one of the worlds most important developers of lighting, we need more efficient led lights, we have to reduce the power usage and make the lights brighter, this can be done with new chemical processes. The future is bright.
I've been growing vegetables indoors for the last 5 years now, realizing that every person got to start ASAP to learn, because learning when we finally need it...is not going to be an option since learning to work with growing crops and produce comes with a learning curve just like everything else. Vegetables are living organics, it's not like learning to play the piano, so many factors comes to play here - and this is something any farmer will tell you...the learning curve is going to be there, you just can't become an overnight pro at this.
So folks, start growing your own produce now - even if it is just basil chilli and spices. I grow Tomatoes, Cucumbers and Paprika peppers in the summertime, try to grow spices all year around, and I'm getting better at it, slowly
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
What are you worried about? They waste their own money doing something stupid? They find out that you need an apartment with a good skylight or balcony to really pull this off well? They find out corn isn't actually a super-efficient all-purpose source of food and ethanol its advertised as by big agricultire? Or maybe deep down inside, the part about this that really bugs you that you can't admit to yourself is the nagging fear that "city folk" might learn to grow their own food and then the one last thing justifying generations of isolation and bigotry promoted by "country folk" will simply evaporate along with all of Monsanto's revenue?
Nitrogen in the air is not readily available, it is chemically inert.
Guess who failed chemistry.
Nitrogen is nitrogen. The simplest way of getting agricultural N2 from air is to plant nitrogen fixers, such as clover. For a more entertaining scale of production, use the Haber-Bosch process.
Hydrogen from natural gas is combined with atmospheric nitrogen to produce ammonia for fertilizer. Ammonia production alone consumes more than 1% of all primary energy, so it is indeed a concern.
However, the hydrogen need not come from natural gas. Water can be dissociated using nuclear heat or electricity. See more about Nuclear Ammonia, for a sustainable and efficient alternative. (The hydrogen can also be used to create other cost competitive synthetic fuels, which could displace fossil fuels entirely for transportation.)
Sadly, most "environmentalists" would prefer that we starve to death rather than embrace a technology capable of bringing prosperity to all of humanity with a minimal environmental footprint.
Spaghetti, Lasagna, Pizza and baked Mostaccoli/Ziti/Penne.
Seems they will grow plenty of Basil.
First of all, the term 'organic' means much more than 'no artificial pesticide'
What Phillips is doing in this 'Growwise indoor farm' is wasting more energy than it needs to --- plants do not need green lights, that is why their leaves are green colored
The lights which plants need are blue light and red light - depending on the type of the plant, the percentage of red light versus that of blue light changes
From the picture of the "Growwise indoor farm" we can see that the LED used inside the farm give out white lights, and plants can only use 1% of the power of white light
In other words, this "Growwise indoor farm" has a much larger carbon footprint than it needed be, and thus, it should not be considered as 'organic'
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Probably they're thinking, "I really like this paycheck. The product we're developing has no chance of gaining traction in the marketplace, but that's my boss' fault for coming up with this idea in the first place."
Do you really think those people are going to argue with management that they shouldn't have a job developing this concept?
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
At some point the lack of natural gas to make fertilizer is going to kill billions.
Even if we ignore that most nitrogen in developed world crops comes from nitrogen-fixing bacteria, it's still going to be a while before methane becomes scarce enough that we stop using it for fertilizer. After all, methane is cheap enough now that they burn it for electricity!
I love how slashdot sucks up to Philips advertising while forgetting their very own denizens that have been doing this LONG BEFORE Philips got into the game.
Let me tell you why the Philips system is a bad idea:
1. Of the Philips lighting I've tested - EVERY PIECE WAS FALSELY ADVERTISED. Under-specced in every aspect.
2. Of the Philips lighting I've had custom-specified - THEY STOLE MY LIGHTING BLENDS. Your heavy-blue lighting regimen for most leafy greens came directly from me, while everyone else was doing red-heavy lighting.
3. Philips has been trying to play the finance game with their lighting systems - dead giveaway to scams is when you need to finance something.
4. I've caught Philips fucking over two other clients so far, and I expect to find that they have fucked over several others as soon as that lighting that was sent to them gets shipped to me and dissected.
Do not get Philips LED lighting. They've been playing games with me and other people in the horticultural industry, stealing our ideas and designs.
Slashdot supports outright thievery with the publication of this 'article.'
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I can guarantee you Philips hasn't been tuning shit. They've been stealing the wavelength blends from other people.
I could probably churn out more than 900 pots of basil (a pot being one container large enough to hold a multi-seeded rockwool cube.) In one square meter using an NFT system, you could easily fit 100-120 pots. 4-5 weeks until harvest time, 900 or more per year per square meter is typical.
I built a building in Texas that can do 3,000+ heads of lettuce PER DAY. 20 foot by 60 foot.
I can even do most of your 'superfood' grass crops without light at all.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
We're at the point that we can actually have solar powered grow lights for our plants and still have greater energy efficiency than just plain sunlight (because you can have the LEDs at peak plant absorption wavelengths). Plus it's easier to transport, easier to deal with climate variability, easier to deal with insects or pests, plants can be fed extra CO2, and you can have more usable light with less heat stress, uses less water, easier to harvest, doesn't contain dirt, and arrives at the market fresher. And on top of all that, you can trick the plant into thinking it is any season you want or even go with 24 hr lighting.
Minuses: It costs more, at least for now.
But don't be too surprised if the future has all farmland converted to solar panels and all farming under grow lights. It'll be great practice for space colonization too.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Almost. Clover, beans, etc. cannot fix nitrogen. What they *can* do is host microorganisms that *do* fix nitrogen. But this doesn't happen automatically, and different plants host different fixing organisms, so you need to ensure that the proper host is innoculated with the proper fixer. If you buy plant seed this is usually (not always) already done, but it often comes with a coating of accompanying applied fungicides. Sometimes this is intentionally applied to prevent people from eating the seeds. (Check the history of Morning Glory seeds, I forget whether it was "Heavenly Blue" or "Pearly Gates".) Sometimes it's just because the most effective fungicides are somewhat poisonous.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Doing it for research, with energy output being among the things studied, is something I'd support. The current system, though, is worse than nothing. It's setting up random time bombs all across the country. The older ones are just entering their critical period. The more recent ones weren't designed to last as long. Everything is being pushed to produce more power and last longer than it was designed to do. And there's no way to clean up when you shut them down.
OTOH, I don't expect a "China Syndrome", more many "Fukishima-like" incidents. With an occasional incident as bad as Chernobyl (though not through the same failure mode).
Until we can deal with the waste produced by reactors, they shouldn't be anything much more than research projects. Would a fast-breeded really consume all it's fuel? Perhaps that's the way to go. Perhaps some other design. Don't build twenty of a design that hasn't been well tested through decomissioning and cleanup. (Even then expect that you've missed some major problems, but that's no excuse not to do anything.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Depends on the daylength - not the method of illumination.
"Currently I'd bet yes, this meets the necessary requirements for Organic"
No, Organic certification forbids the usage of artificial irradiation.
Indoor lighting != natural radiation.
Indoor lighting == non-ionizing radiation. Irradiation == ionizing radiation (usually, and most certainly here).
Bullshit! Unlike what you pluck out of your arse I provide sources.
"Light: Use of artificial light is acceptable, although not in excess of the Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) of a summer day and should not exceed 12 hours of daylight including the artificial light."The Expert Group for Technical Advice on Organic Production (EGTOP) was set up three years ago in order to provide technical advice to the European Commission.
FarmedHere in Chicago is artificially lit, and certified organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
National Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia Limited - no rule on artificial light for agriculture (aquaculture is limited to 16 hours a day and no sudden changes in photoperiod).
No restrictions on artificial light.
I'm a farmer. Our aquaculture production is herbs, yabbies and Murray cod - we're ACOS and NASAA certified as organic, which allows us to export to both the US and EU organic markets. Pisses me off no end when dickheads like you appoint yourselves "organic certification" authorities.
Put it in print with your name in it and we'll let the courts decide whose right. Until then it's your unqualified private opinion and you should clearly label it as such.
So the sun doesn't emit ionizing radiation? Hint: even without the massive holes in the ozone layer - it does. But go lay in the sun all day. Please. (arseclown).
Either put up of shut the fuck up - but no you slink away leaving a slime trail...
Take it up with the OP, if you aren't just here to stalk me. If you have a brain, it should be obvious why - I'm sure as hell are not going to explain, after I futilely tried to explain something quite obvious to you just a few hours ago.
Does not parse. What the fuck are you trying to say. You make the claim that artificially lit crops can't be certified then you blame it on someone else (cowardly - um, it was the big kid wot done it, and used my login!) /.? But when challenged you mewl "if I need to explain" - like we all are so dumb as to forget you made an unsubstantiated claim? Pathetic and text book guilty:-
Then you claim you're being stalked (delusional++).
Then you claim you can't explain what you said. An appeal to sympathy for what? Were you born retarded? Had some sort of traumatic head injury that still enables you to spew stupid on
'Excuse me, sir. What are you doing with that diamond necklace hanging out of your pocket?'
'I say, isn't that a purebred German shepherd dog you have with you"
(Even if the policeman is put off the scent, the dog won't be.)
That ain't a diamond necklace hanging out of your pocket...
Futile would be the most fitting epitaph for you (and likely all that'll fit on your gravestone).
What are "yabbies"?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The real innovator in this space is www.aerofarms.com . The LEDs are not as efficient as you might initially think. Although you can vary the wavelength and duty-cycle easier than incandescents. Phillips and their billions will try to capture the market, but the true technology lies with aeroponic farming and going vertical. Enjoy your leafy greens.
Who gives a shit about growing food in the city. I just don't want to be stuck eating only potatoes on Mars.
What are "yabbies"?
Colloquial name for any freshwater crayfish. We have several varieties (and species) in Australia (dunno where you're from, but you probably have an equivalent). In our case we cultivate a variant of Cherax destructor . The destructor comes from their habit of burrowing into dam and creek walls to shelter during the cold season (now, currently sub-zero which is cold for Australia). We sell the yabbies live to local (small for bait, large for premium restaurants) and (small amounts i.e. 5 - 10K Kg) international markets (shipped in chilled water) but are also exploring the market for the meat, and believe it or not - the shells for use as material (chittlin or chitlin?) for use in bandages for a company the provides medical supplies to the US Marines.
Tasty - they provide good nutrients for hydroponically grown basil, parsley, and coriander - and food for Murray cod (very simple, even a flat dweller can do it - Murray Cod are a bit more demanding, I've two girls that are 40+Kg - don't skinny-dip in their pool!). The yabbies eat earthworms, straw, and small amounts of vegetable scraps.
Premium international market is Finland when the have their annual Kemah festival (Does Linus eat yabbies? Texas and other US states also have a Kemah festival, and I've found most American, at least in the Southern states love our yabbies as much as their own freshwater crayfish).
I like them - don't know how they appeal to US tastes, but they taste the same as US freshwater crustaceans to me (nice freshly boiled and dipped in sauce accompanied by good beer). We've bred a distinctive bright blue variant (which tastes the same as the green and brown coloured variants).
I also breed small amounts of the local Murray crayfish and would very much like to try breeding the giant Tasmanian yabbie. (the worlds largest freshwater crustacean)
I hope that answers all your questions - thanks for a civil, intelligent post.
According to Wikipedia, it is an Aussie Crawfish.
Yeah...I'm familiar with them, I live in New Orleans, and here in southern LA, we go through TONs of them boiled each year during the season which ended about a month or so ago.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Ok...crawfish.
Yeah...I'm familiar with them, I live in New Orleans, and here in southern LA, we go through TONs of them boiled each year during the season which ended about a month or so ago.
Yeah! You guys (and gals) know how to do food right! I really enjoy my trips there - never thought it'd be the same after the floods, but you can't keep good things down (unless they're food).
Actually, honestly...in the long run, Katrina was one of the best things that happened to New Orleans. There was 1-2 year struggle after but since then, the city is MUCH better overall.
After the first year, we actually had MORE restaurants than before the storm.
Due to money coming in after Katrina, this city was largely unaffected by the recession and the housing value drop the rest of the US experienced.
And frankly, a lot of the *bad* sort in the city were flushed out, and one of the largest demographics moving in, are 25-35 year old , well educated folks with good jobs following them. While in past couple years...the bad part of the city has infiltrated back in some, and crime has gone up, but over all...the city is much better, much stronger and better equipped to be a good place to live since the storm.
Hopefully...in just another year of so, one of the last projects remaining will be torn down and replaced with mixed housing...doing this all these years to the other horrible crime infested projects throughout the city, has really helped a lot too. And once the large VA/LSU medical corridor opens soon down Canal St.....more good paying jobs will be coming in here.
Yep, come for a visit....we're a much better city at the 10 year Katrina anniversary.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
My house uses it for cooking and heat as well. What a waste.
It is nice and warm in the winter though.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
We can deal with the waste from reactors, it is just environmental idiots and people afraid of proliferation that are holding back reprocessing. France reprocesses and sells power to all of Europe, but the US has laws against reprocessing that were put in place under Carter.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
"... 900 pots of [weed] a year." FTFTFA
Have you looked at what they are calling "Clean up"? I believe that in Britain they actually filled one reactor building (not just the reactor) with cement. I presume they removed the fuel first. And it's still considered a hazerdous area and entry is forbidden to most people. That's not anything I'd call "clean up". And, IIUC, the US hasn't figured out HOW to close down the Hanford reactors, and is threatening to pollute the Columbia river right down through Seattle. If we need to evacuate Seattle that will be a fair inconvenience. There have already been minor leaks.
I'm not really convinced we know HOW to clean up a reactor site. Even cleaning up after a gas station is a real problem.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The problem here is that neither of us has a fucking clue what you are babbling about, Care for some coherence?
Neither of us? Speak for yourself. You might want to seek professional help - especially about that stalking delusion.
Actually, honestly...in the long run, Katrina was one of the best things that happened to New Orleans. There was 1-2 year struggle after but since then, the city is MUCH better overall.
Hell of a price to pay for improvements - I was there the year after and things were still a mess.
Yep, come for a visit....we're a much better city at the 10 year Katrina anniversary.
I'll be back again in a couple of months - I visit Texas twice a year (work) and always make a point of visiting friends in New Iberia (which was fortunately unaffected). A trip with them to the sleazey (I mean that affectionately) is always a high-point.