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.

Comments

So does this qualify as 'organic'?

[Sowelu]

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.

Re:So does this qualify as 'organic'?

[Adriax]

Overfertilization is an issue because farms can't economically control the runoff from their farm.
That's not an issue here as the hydroponic system fully contains the water.

Infact it is much more economical, with a system this size, to recycle the water as it finishes a run through your system instead of dumping it. A good amount of nutrients stay unused. So you scrub out the waste, fix the nutrient imbalances, and send it back through the system. That's why these guys claim as low as 5L of water for a kilo of tomatoes, instead of the 30-60L for other greenhouses and 214L for standard farming (from a quick google search).

Re:So does this qualify as 'organic'?

[Nethemas the Great]

I don't know what all the inputs are, such as fertilizer, nor how they'd match up to prevailing organic specifications. However, "organic" isn't a baseless marketing concept. The goal is to produce wholesome, nutritious, food without destroying the environment. Adherents believe that modern agriculture--with Monsanto style pesticides/herbicides, GMOs, petroleum derived fertilizers, etc.--is destructive, unsustainable, and ultimately produces lower quality food. On face value this project sounds like it's in keeping with the goals of organic farming even if certain details would need to be modified to be pedantically adherent.

BTW: there is such a thing as organic hydroponics

Re: So does this qualify as 'organic'?

[Applehu Akbar]

You can plant any seeds you want in one of these, Monsanto or otherwise. The real problem is that as soon as you walk out of Home Despot with one of these kits, the DEA will will be following you home to shoot your dog, slam your kids into foster care, and steal your cash. You know, just in case there might be anything suspicious about your choice of seeds.

Re:So does this qualify as 'organic'?

[Okian Warrior]

So, I'm all for grow local, but when there's sun shining right outside - this doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense to me... unless you are a company that sells grow lights.

You have a point, but you also have to consider the context of comparison.

Plants grown outdoors face an array of problems that the farmer has to account for. Keeping insects off, keeping weeds at bay, keeping the plants watered and fertilized - all this comes at a cost to the farmer.

Indoor farming requires a more expensive infrastructure (the building, trays, and plumbing) but has great savings in some of the other areas. It's easier to keep weeds and insects out, for instance.

Of particular note, outdoors you can't recycle unused water or fertilizer, but this can be done indoors. Collect any unused water after the plants have drunk their fill, remove waste products, top off the fertilizer, and reuse.

So the economic question is this: is the extra money/effort spent on generating light compensated for by the savings in insecticides, roundup, fertilizer, and water?

I think the answer is probably "yes", given that LED lights are incredibly efficient. (Also of note: less of the environment is damaged by excess fertilizer and water drainage. Damaging the environment indirectly costs money.)

Then the next question is with the building: does it make sense to have big windows and use mostly solar light, and adjust as needed with indoor lighting?

Windows cost more than walls, they require extra heating and/or air conditioning, they're not as structurally sound, and the light isn't used efficiently in the 3-d volume; meaning, you can't grow corn on each story of a 5-story building, because the first layer will shade the ones below it. (And windows break, they have to be cleaned, they tend to leak, &c.)

It may be more economically sensible to grow corn in a 5-story warehouse close to a city simply because it reduces the transport costs. It also reduces the amount of land used - allowing more plots to go back to the wild.

And on top of all of this, researchers I've talked to are doing clever things with the light recipe they're giving to plants.

Some plants detect the reddening of the sun and "go to sleep" at sunset. By adjusting the light color, you can keep the plants growing 18 hours a day and then blast them with excess red light to get them to quickly go into night mode. This increases yield by reducing the growing period of their crops.

(A bunch of other experiments are really interesting, such as: hitting the crops with a particular frequency of light to cause their ripening flavors to go into overdrive, making a crop that is inordinately tasty.)

So in summary, we should do the economic experiment and see if it's viable, but in toto there's a lot to recommend indoor industrial gardening.

Re:So does this qualify as 'organic'?

[Khyber]

Many White LEDs use a UV base. Some utilize UVB, in part due to how we have phosphor blends tuned to work with the UVB emissions that come from fluorescent lamps.

So some do emit ionizing radiation. Also, with this kind of setup, one would be foolish to not employ UVB LEDs and UVC germicidal gas lamps to ensure essentially zero pest problems ever.

Re:So does this qualify as 'organic'?

[Adriax]

Yup. The growing medium just needs to be structurally supportive, non reacting, and in some hydroponic setups, capable of holding a little bit of water.
The only personal experience I have is with an aerogarden unit, and the seed pods for that are just plastic sponges. Though I have read about using ceramic beads, coconut fiber, or even just clean gravel if you're cheap.

Re:So does this qualify as 'organic'?

[kamapuaa]

No no no no no no no. You underestimate the costs of the new, and over-estimate the costs of the old.

The cost of electricity equivalent to sunlight is quite high. The cost of 5 story warehouses close to a city is high.

Sunlight is free. Water is cheap. Farmland in the middle of nowhere is cheap. Roundup is cheap/environmentally friendly.

Re:So does this qualify as 'organic'?

[minimum]

No, gross majority of white LED's use blue (so called royal blue, 450nm) as a base. Both, emitter and conversion to yellow are more efficient that way.

Re:So does this qualify as 'organic'?

[Barsteward]

It would help if you are using solar to power the LEDs. Water is only cheap in some places, California seems to be having a few issues with not enough water. The farmers are being blamed for taking most of it. If they could use this system in more places then it would save a lot. The cost of a 5 storey block may be high but if its full of layers and layers of growing food for 24 hours and day, 365 days a year, it will soon work out cost effective. Considering the amount of land you'd need to compare to the 365 day a year output of this hydro-led system, it would be more expensive to buy and prepare ready for crops. No weeding, no spraying etc, the advantages are enormous especially when these places are pretty much computer controlled.

Growing Herbs in the Netherlands?

[Irate Engineer]

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 ?

lettice under LED grow lights?

[Karmashock]

... 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.

Re:lettice under LED grow lights?

[TWX]

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 don't think that you're correct. Food production and the supply chain is the most important part of a society after access to potable water. Places where land is hideously expensive want to maximize the yield per acre, and if they can get the energy production cost along with the equipment cost down below what it costs to do it the old-fashioned way, and can also improve the consistency of the resulting crops, they may well be on to something. Think of places like Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and probably a whole slew of others where this would be economically viable even with the need to build structures from the ground up to do it in, where an interruption to the current food supply chain would have devastating results to the populace.

Don't forget that the sun provides more wavelengths than the plants use. Generating only the wavelengths that the plants use should mean energy efficiency.

Re:lettice under LED grow lights?

[GerryGilmore]

As someone who as - in the past - grown pot indoors under lights and outdoors, there's no comparison. Growing outdoors, for every 10 seedlings, you're lucky to get one healthy plant - and it has a 50/50 chance of being a male, hence worthless. Indoors, you start with 10 seedlings and get 10 plants. The same 50/50 ratio of male and female, but you've got 5 instead of .5. Next, factor in the insect and animal damage outdoors and then the bud rot at harvest time, and indoor farming is far, far superior. Not sure about corn, but - fuck that! I can buy any type in the store I want. :-)

Re:lettice under LED grow lights?

[Karmashock]

If you do hydroponics then that's less of an issue. Most of the bugs need the soil. And the ones that don't can be dealt with by hitting them with some safe pesticides.

Re:lettice under LED grow lights?

[Firethorn]

Yeah, that's gotta be more efficient than overalls and a flannel shirt, riding a tractor in a field...

The places I'm thinking about humans don't go into much at all, most of it's robotic.

And while it's more expensive 'right now', consider the expense of growing crops in South America to ship up to the USA.

The economics of it is complex, to say the least. What it amounts to is that you're spending 200+ times as much per acre, but you're getting something like 100 times the productivity, lower shipping costs, and less ruined product by the time it reaches the stores.

Re:lettice under LED grow lights?

[Khyber]

" For example, chlorophyll, the dye molecule used by many plants, only absorbs significantly in relatively narrow bands of the blue and red [wikipedia.org], corresponding to 2% of the total solar irradiant power."

WRONG.

http://pcp.oxfordjournals.org/...

This is why you should never, EVER rely upon Wikipedia, people.

Guess why HPS lighting works so well for growing weed and other crops despite being extremely heavy in green output? It sure isn't the piss-piddly amount of red and orange coming from it, nor is it the huge amount of IR.

Re:lettice under LED grow lights?

[Khyber]

"And if you have ANY interest in doing this efficiently, then you'll use the sun and not LEDs."

Sun = ~93 lumens per watt.

LED = ~220+ lumens per watt.

Try again when you're actually educated in the subject, okay?

Re:lettice under LED grow lights?

[Barsteward]

"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." Why? you just need empty spaces for tiers of hydroponic racks, a water feed, electricity for the LEDs and water pumps, they generally all come with a building (depending on the building type) You can only get a fixed amount out of 1m square on a farm but with this system you could have 3 tiers of 1m square. When you are only supplying local, you don't need monster farms that are susceptible to being damaged from freak weather patterns. its never going to replace farms but if you live in an area where you can only grow for part of the year, its going to be very useful.

"This product they're thinking about selling... I can't see anyone outside of some government goofball on expense account buying this thing" there are a few greenhouse farms in the UK testing these systems out and they can now grow tomatoes all year. Visit youtube and check some of the reports on the success of these LED farms

It'll never work.

[Krishnoid]

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.

Re:Nice slashvertisement

[Sowelu]

If Slashdot dropped every article about an actual product (as opposed to news or science stories), we'd have even less content...

900 pots of "basil" a year

[SuperKendall]

It's OK. I'm from Colorado, I know what you really meant.

Nobody grows basil in dirt anyway....

[Harlequin80]

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.

Re:Dwindling airable land?

[Charliemopps]

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?

I'm a libertarian and hate subsidies, but having many farmers as relatives, feel I have to correct your misinformation.

Lets say the price of corn hits something insanely high like $10/per bushel.
You might think to yourself "I should get into this corn farming thing" and invest money in starting up a farm.
As you do that starting a farm is expensive. Equipment for farming corn is unique and can't be used for something like Peas. But the price of corn is so high, it's worth it.
After you harvest you get your money... whew! What a good investment! But by the 2nd year you realize a lot of other people had the same idea you did and they started corn farms as well. The market is glutted with corn, the price crashes to $1/bushel
But you notice Peas are selling really high so you switch to farming peas. It costs you a fortune for new equipment but you get your peas planted...
and 2 years later, you run into the same problem, everyone switched crops at the same time you did, Pea prices fall through the floor and you're trying to buy back your corn equipment.

This happened at the turn of the century a LOT. No individual farmer can be expected to accurately predict the price of corn the following season. So the feds do it for them. They offer a floor on the price of their crops, and they pay farmers not to plant. This stabilizes the market, prevents over-saturation and allows farmers to be more efficient. The cost to the government is actually a net profit because those wild swings in the market price cost them a lot of tax revenue.

Re:lettuce under LED grow lights?

[WillAffleckUW]

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.

Re:Dwindling airable land?

[JoeMerchant]

I think what the Libertarians fail to realize is that farmers, as a general rule, are not smart enough to diversify or maintain course. The nature of the business has been encouraging specialization, and since everyone is out to maximize profits, that leads to overproduction of last year's overpriced crops, which become next year's glut production which don't sell for enough to pay the loans, so you get a bunch of banks owning farms and equipment. It's not healthy, and the next generation of farmers that step up at auction to try their hand have never been any better than the previous at predicting and dealing with market swings.

It would be really cool if we could run "sim-Earth" with pure philosophies and see what happens. Life being what it is, if any single philosophy from today became widely adopted and "took over the world" without adapting itself, the world would quickly spin out of control. What makes the world we have work as well as it does is the opposing forces of a variety of philosophies, none of which are suited to operating in total control.

Philips isn't doing anything new.

[Khyber]

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.'

Re:Nothing new

[Khyber]

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.

Re:I do not think they qualified as 'organic'

[Khyber]

"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"

Wrong.

http://pcp.oxfordjournals.org/...

But you keep getting suckered by LED Marketing. Meanwhile, anybody who actually paid attention to real credible research within the past half decade+ knows better. Philips obviously doesn't have a clue.

grow lights are the future

[penguinoid]

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.

Re:And where does the nitrogen come from?

[HiThere]

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.

Re:So does this qualify as 'organic'? (probably)

[Demonoid-Penguin]

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).

Re:So does this qualify as 'organic'? (probably)

[Demonoid-Penguin]

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!)
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 /.? 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:-
'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).

Re:So does this qualify as 'organic'? (probably)

[Demonoid-Penguin]

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.

Re:So does this qualify as 'organic'? (probably)

[Demonoid-Penguin]

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.