Fujitsu harvests low-potassium lettuce grown in semiconductor plant(japantimes.co.jp) |
Fujitsu harvests low-potassium lettuce grown in semiconductor plant(japantimes.co.jp) |
Pollination is easy - bees. Even basement/garage growers will use bees to pollinate. That said, you don't need bees in this example as you never want lettuce (or any leafy green) to flower. You can control the flowering with reduced temp and different light temperatures, too. In tomato/pepper/fruiting plants, you'll need manual pollination or a beehive in your hydro-warehouse.
Re: super-organic - Most hydroponic growing is not organic. By nature of adding nutrients (fertilizer, salts, ph adjustments) that replace what is found in soil means hydroponics is traditionally not organic. There are organic hydroponics going on (I am not aware of a large-scale one) and they are NOT clean nor bug free, given the nature of making organic nutrients (they smell like shit, really, as most are compost or something-rotting-based).
There are externalities that are increasing the cost of 'land' farming, among them water availability, GMO concerns, pest control, and land/labor costs. At some point robot harvested, hydroponically grown, vegetables will cap the cost of producing food that way. And if the 'old fashioned' way will become more expensive than that.
The key difference in cost between the two is, as you point out, the cost of energy. Using 'free' solar power versus using grow lights, changes the equation fairly dramatically. But one of the possible futures is that humans will master the ability to harvest more abundant energy. In so doing, I believe humans will have changed the economics of hydroponics dramatically, and things like pest control and labor cost advantages will swing over to the hydroponics side.
Ironically, if you mastered indoor multi-story growing and it became the norm, you would almost certainly create a new marketing label for food that was grown in one layer outdoors. Similar to how we currently have a marketing label for "organic" food.
I'm guessing that they're using hydroponics and carefully regulating the mineral supply to achieve the desired potassium levels.
They grow that stuff for people with kidney problems, they have to follow a diet that is low in potassium.
With a clean environment, potassium levels can be reduced as well, as high potassium soil (fertilized that way) will allow the plant to uptake more potassium and increase its resilience to disease and bug damage.
"No pesticide is used and because the lettuce is produced in a clean room, it stays fresh for about two weeks when stored at 10 degrees Celsius or lower."
They don't need to use pesticides because of the clean room, which in turn makes for lower potassium content in the lettuce.
That's hardly special. I've stored lettuce that I bought commercially for 4 weeks and it was fine. So that's 4 weeks plus however long it took to get to me. (I bought too much by mistake.)
Fujitsu Semiconductor and Toshiba Corp have both started to grow greens and believe the tightly-controlled conditions produce superior plants that can be tuned in terms of trace elements and therefore for taste or for specialized diets to meet health-care needs.
Ironically when I aske about the lo-salt versions of things like soy sauce she commented no the crap they put in to replace salt is worse :-)
And don't get me started on hospital food. (Short version: my "renal diet" at Cedars Sinai was just half-portions of the regular diet -- including half a banana, and a 4-oz container of orange juice. No joke.)
Watching serving sizes is the trick, because "suggested" serving sizes are usually totally unrealistic. People will tell you to avoid spinach like the plague because they're used to thinking of it as a crapton of leaves boiled down to a few spoonfuls. But they might make you so paranoid that you avoid a sandwich that has three leaves of fresh spinach on it, despite the fact that there's more potassium in the bread! And conversely, they might not mention potatoes, because the suggested serving size is so small, but you'll get a ton of potassium if you eat a giant plate of french fries (potato skins even more so).
Some things nobody told me:
1) A baked potato has twice as much potassium as a banana.
2) So does an avocado.
3) Some fancy grains, like quinoa, are reasonably high in potassium.
4) Foods claiming to be "a good source of potassium" aren't always the most potassium-rich; that's just marketing, and tells you more about the calories per unit potassium than it does about the potassium per serving.
5) The USDA nutritional database is one of the most useful things our government has ever done: http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list
They have 8 acres of greenhouse in Watsonville, and a producing some really impressive quantities of greens: more than 10 times per acre per year over conventional. They are aquaponic, which means they are growing both vegetables and fish (mostly sturgeon in their case). I have a friend with lots of traditional ag experience who visited them recently, and he seemed close to proclaiming they were the path to the future. I'll join you if you wrangle a tour.
According to [0] from 2000, about 8% of the greenhouses in Almeria, Spain use hydroponics. [1] from 2010 says it's now 10%. The pictures in [2] show that 10% is still a lot...
[0] http://www.schundler.com/spain.htm
[1] http://books.google.com/books?id=5Ag-wT0rLEMC&pg=PA47&lpg=PA...
[2] http://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/08/the-greenhouses-of-alme...
Re: cost -- "FarmedHere CEO Jolanta Hardej says a 5.5-ounce box of its arugula retails in local markets for $4.99, 50 to 75 cents more than imported organic arugula. Still, she says it sells out because it is fresher and tastier. "
That is a ton, price wise, considering it is over the price of the organic which is over the price of what most consumers are buying.
If you can use solar to power lights within your grow building, good, but you'll never make it a 1:1 sun:light ratio... Plus the cost of panels (going down).
I'm not a naysayer, just trying to be realistic. I have a fair amount of stuff growing in my basement in a mostly hands-off approach (reporting is here: http://www.oakwoodproduce.com/hydrolog/dashboard.html).. I think after a year I am breaking even or even ahead on kale, chard, lettuce, and for sure herbs. We haven't bought leafy greens or herbs in a long time, and often give away to the neighbors, food trucks, etc. My monthly cost is around $80 for lights and $20 for water/nutrients/supplies/seeds.
Tomatoes and peppers get pricey - need higher powered, hotter lights which need cooling and more electricity...
It also gives head lettuce at best two weeks at five degrees centigrade. So, two weeks at 10 degrees seems a good result.
On the other hand, the article says _about_ two weeks; they might mean 'ten days plus', and 'freshness' may be highly subjective (I bet there is a standard for measuring lettuce freshness)
Frankly, if you're not using a head of lettuce in 2 weeks something is wrong with your eating and/or buying decision making :-)