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Startup Sells Pot 'Grow Fridges' That Are Tended By Robots (nj.com)
NJ Advance Media reports on "an Israeli and Maryland-based startup that claims to be able to quadruple the yield of traditional cannabis grows" -- using indoor, climate-controlled 40-inch-tall "grow fridges" that are tended by robots.
You see, despite the old cliche of "growing like a weed," cannabis has actually been something of a high-maintenance slacker when it comes to its cultivation... In shade, it provides far less seed and pollen. It's not tolerant of the cold, and does not reproduce well in drought. It's also very susceptible to fungal infections, so too much water leaves it vulnerable to pathogens... For years, the high price fetched by traditionally farmed cannabis and low cost of human labor conspired to make robotic farming uneconomical.
What else is inside the Seedo container besides the plants, gro-bots and soil? Nothing -- which is kind of the whole point: Seedo uses a patented, beyond-surgical grade filtration system that ionizes the air, making it deadly to bacteria, viruses and mold.... At $150,000 per Seedo container, the costs to achieve this are high, but cutting the usual 10 percent to 20 percent loss to disease of a traditionally farmed cannabis crop to disease to less than 5 percent, they rapidly become economical... A traditionally-farmed 1,000 square meter grow operation produces 600 kilograms of cannabis per year. But Levy says 16 Seedo containers (along with a Seedo robot to tend them) can fit into that same space, producing 2.4 tons of dry bud [2,177 kilograms]. And because they can be stacked 5 high, the same robotically farmed footprint can generate up to 12 tons [10,886 kilograms] of dry bud cannabis. "You can make a return on investment very fast," said Levy, whose backers now include include Daniel Birnbaum, the CEO of SodaStream International, acquired by Pepsi late last year for $3.2 billion.
"Think of Seedo as the first driverless car for hydroponic growing," explains their web site, noting that their gro-bots control each container's temperature, humidity, lighting, pH sensors, and automated CO2-release systems, with internal cameras offering HD-live streaming to their iOS/Android app.
Seedo is now "in negotiations" to export its containers to California and Nevada, according to the article, and also in New Jersey -- assuming New Jersey's state legislature votes to legalize it first.
What else is inside the Seedo container besides the plants, gro-bots and soil? Nothing -- which is kind of the whole point: Seedo uses a patented, beyond-surgical grade filtration system that ionizes the air, making it deadly to bacteria, viruses and mold.... At $150,000 per Seedo container, the costs to achieve this are high, but cutting the usual 10 percent to 20 percent loss to disease of a traditionally farmed cannabis crop to disease to less than 5 percent, they rapidly become economical... A traditionally-farmed 1,000 square meter grow operation produces 600 kilograms of cannabis per year. But Levy says 16 Seedo containers (along with a Seedo robot to tend them) can fit into that same space, producing 2.4 tons of dry bud [2,177 kilograms]. And because they can be stacked 5 high, the same robotically farmed footprint can generate up to 12 tons [10,886 kilograms] of dry bud cannabis. "You can make a return on investment very fast," said Levy, whose backers now include include Daniel Birnbaum, the CEO of SodaStream International, acquired by Pepsi late last year for $3.2 billion.
"Think of Seedo as the first driverless car for hydroponic growing," explains their web site, noting that their gro-bots control each container's temperature, humidity, lighting, pH sensors, and automated CO2-release systems, with internal cameras offering HD-live streaming to their iOS/Android app.
Seedo is now "in negotiations" to export its containers to California and Nevada, according to the article, and also in New Jersey -- assuming New Jersey's state legislature votes to legalize it first.
C'mon people, how hard can it be?
The only concern is if the AI in the robots advances enough that it decides it wants to get high and smokes all the profits away.
Given how well this works fo ra fussy plant like pot, I wonder what other plants it could be tuned to grow with high productivity?
There are not many crops that can yield the kind of return pot can, but for legal ones I'm thinking at least Saffron...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
These are "economical" only if you're a professional weed grower. If you're growing for yourself, stick it in a window and water it occasionally, and you'll have fantastic weed. It's not difficult to do.
I don't respond to AC's.
So someone finally heard about the Phototron and thought: "Lines of code - whatever the fuck those are - will surely make this even better..."
the AI becomes an DEA RAT
Marianna is still considered a scheduled 1 narcotic according to the DEA. The agreement that the DEA signed under the Obama administration is just basically an promise to not after the weed industry if they follow certain guidelines. This is an agreement that is in no way legally binding and one that can just go away whenever a future admin decides they don't want to permit it any further. And frankly I'm surprised that this president hasn't allowed himself to be pushed into that course of action by the rest of the GOP.
This thing, it's a near product. But it's a tool that could instantly become a piece of expensive 'paraphernalia' the can be seized by the feds unless someone finally un-fucks the drug scheduling system here in the US.
Found the guy who didn't click the link to the website!
The website lists other things that will grow, but that was already obvious - my question is more around, what else makes economic sense to grow in a pretty expensive container.
I was taking the price of the first link, but it seems you didn't look at the Seedo website for pricing - if you click "buy now" the price is $2400, discounted from $3000. So you should probably actually read something next time before assuming someone else did not.
Back to the topic of the fridge, Another area I could see it working in is a super-high end restaurant, to grow the veggies they use for cooking - then there would be no question of no pesticides, the consistency would probably be amazing, and the high price of the food itself could pay for how expensive the whole system was.
They could keep the grow fridge out in the open like they do beef drying racks in some places...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oooooh spend $1000's to grow an OZ of dry weed? LOL Its not the first system either. there been a couple more over the last 5 years. Get a small grow tent. led. fans and an autopot system and you got the same thing for $500. There will be some idiots parted with their money soon.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Legalizing marijuana will probably go a long way towards combating homelessness rather than adding to it. Many of the people who are becoming destitute are that way after becoming addicted to opioids prescribed as pain medication. In many cases, cannabis would not only be far more effective for managing their pain, but it also eliminates the knock-on effects from patients becoming addicted to opioids.
Additionally, once people start turning to illegal drugs, they tend to get impure product that's been cut without god knows what that can have more detrimental health effects than the drug itself. Once a product becomes legal, customers don't have to buy low-grade black market product. We saw the same with alcohol where during prohibition, and now that alcohol is legal again you almost never find anyone who dies from consuming something purchased in a store due to it being a badly prepared batch.
cutting the usual 10 percent to 20 percent loss to disease of a traditionally farmed cannabis crop to disease to less than 5 percent, they rapidly become economical.
I'm pretty sure that the cost for adding 10% more plants is less than one of those robot systems.
Ya again with the mixed measurement in an article, if they had used tonnes I would have been less perturbed , but tons and kilos in the same paragraph is just poor reporting!
That's not the effect of weed. That's the effect of socialism.
The AC's point was the original puritan argument against hedonism, and it's not entirely without merit. In an ideal world, you'd educate people about the risks of using drugs and most people would see value in the logic that mind-altering substances are detrimental to their health and are an unproductive use of their money and free time. Unfortunately, in practice, that works about as well as arguing politics on the internet.
If you believe people have a right to sit on their ass and get high rather than being productive members of society, you've gotta be willing to accept the consequences wrought upon your society by allowing such behavior. That usually means the productive members have to support the druggies.
So, if you're not a big fan of socialism - you probably shouldn't be a big fan of hedonism.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Homegrow = Replace the old 5 gallon bucket in the back yard with a computer and a bunch of pumps and sensors to go shit-house.
Commercial grow = Replace your infrastructure with a extra few thousand/plant worth of computers and a bunch of pumps and sensors to go shit-house.
I'm working on some A/I enhanced toilet paper to go along with all of todays latest A/I shit
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Well, la tee da for you, Mr. "I've eaten at some very expensive places" hoyteedoity...
Relax man, the last thing I got eating out wa sa Jomacha shake at Arby;s.
Unfortunately, for us normal down-to-Earth people, it takes 10 weeks to grow that carrot you enjoyed overpaying for.
Sure, if you grow it out in dirt. What are you, some kind of animal (well, Ok, we all are, I meant an animal without an expensive grow fridge).
The whole point of a system like this is to use technology to hasten that cycle. Hydroponic plants grow 25-30% faster than normal plants because of nutrition carefully delivered, and constant lighting (both of which the fridge features)..
If high-end restaurants want high quality, non-GMO, non-pesticide sprayed veggies, they're just going to negotiate a contract with farmers
Or buy into a number of these fridges for more limited dishes, they can use farmers for the less key dishes.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
why limit this to just pot ?
If a publication has a substantial American readership, how is it "just poor reporting" to report a mass in both 1000 kg metric tons and 907.2 kg American tons?
No, it's usually not a good option for a publication to ignore the USA entirely. This is because on a GDP per language basis, the USA is probably the largest market in the world. Its GDP of 19.39 trillion USD is still bigger than China's (12.25 trillion USD), India's (2.60 trillion USD), and the EU's (18.5 trillion USD), and far bigger than any of the 24 language areas within the EU.
TFA sez: "A traditionally-farmed 1,000 square meter grow operation produces 600 kilograms of cannabis per year. But Levy says 16 Seedo containers (along with a Seedo robot to tend them) can fit into that same space..." Thus, according to the article, a Seedo container plus 1/16th of a Seedo robot is about 60 m^2 in footprint. Since the fridge thing is approx 0.6 m x 0.6 m (0.36 sq m), the fridge CANNOT be the Seedo container mentioned in the article, unless the Seedo robot takes up 99+% of that 60 sq meters. Maybe it's just an awkward robot... In any event, it would seem the "container" is a good portion of that 60 m^2 in footprint. Let's assume 50 m^2 of grow space for the container, which IS NOT the fridge.
Sez "At $150,000 per Seedo container...". Again, this cannot be the fridge-sized widget, especially since the website points out that the fridge is $2400. And the fridge doesn't appear to come with the "Seedo robot". No details on the cost of that robot...
At first, I imagined that the "container" was exactly that, a shipping container. Those things get used for everything, and this sounds like this system would do fine delivered as a complete shipping container: Just add seeds, electricity, water, and the secret ingredients. But even the largest containers (53' x 8') are only 39 m^2 footprint, that doesn't align with the 50 m^2 estimate, but it's not too far off. Maybe the robot needs 1/3 of the available footprint, making the growing area 40 m^2. Hey hey hey! No sure how the robot would navigate between containers, tho.
Sez "...16 Seedo containers (along with a Seedo robot to tend them) ... produc(es) 2.4 tons of dry bud...". Thus, 1 Seedo container must produce about 150 kg of dry bud during some period of time, and TFA compares it to a traditional grow operation, using a year as the unit of time. According to an obvious Internet authority (https://www.growweedeasy.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-grow-marijuana) that process from seed to harvest can take 3-4 months. If we can crank the knob way up, then we could imagine maybe 4 growth cycles per year. If the container has a working area of 50 m^2, with growth 4 cycles per year, that'd be 37.5 kg of bud per 50 m^2, or 0.75 kg / m^2.
The most fecund crops are tomatoes, sugar cane, and sugar beets (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-worlds-most-valuable-cash-crop/). Let's use tomatoes for a comparison. They yield about 3300 metric tons per km^2, or 3.3 kg per m^2. Yes, it's tomatoes to dope, but 0.75 kg / m^2 is at least within an order of magnitude of 3.3 kg / m^2. That sounds imaginable. Instead of tomatoes, probably bud should be compared to a cereal where the amount of biomass that's not the desired product is similar to weed. And for that kind of produce, the yield would be more in line with the 0.75 kg / m^2.
Would be interesting to see if the robot can also do pollination!
Yes, socialism made housing too expensive, socialism made mental healthcare too expensive and that black market is pure socialism.
I guess it was socialism that also caused Hearst to manipulate things to make hemp illegal so his business wasn't threatened by cheap paper as well and socialism that created the private prison industry.
Is there nothing that socialism isn't responsible for? Shit it even made Obama pass a law forcing people to buy insurance from private insurance companies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
... and grow my own, with Seedo. Oh, yeah.
despite the old cliche of "growing like a weed,"
That saying isn't about fucking weed. It's about weeds. What a stupid line. I'm sure they felt INCREDIBLY clever when they wrote it.
YMMV but I have lower back pain from a spinal issue and marijuana doesn't help even a little bit with the pain. Alcohol is somewhat helpful since it relaxes the muscles a bit, but I'm not interested in using it as a normal form of treatment. I'd rather deal with the pain than use opiates, so that's what I'm doing. It's definitely an impressive drug, but it doesn't help in every case.