BUILDING THE PROTO TYPES

General Background

Over the years many different systems and proto types have been built and tried, ranging from simple rotating system for glasshouses to A frames and mechanical moving systems.

The first units built were for operation in the glasshouse using natural light.

From growing in a glasshouse were conditions varied a major effort has been placed in creating a system where all aspects required can be controlled effectively.

A example of an moving A frame system This system used a single light source.The right hand picture shows what happens with moving systems when they crash they also require a lot of maintenance and are very expensive to build. The problems with moving systems is it is very difficult to control all aspects of growth e.g. irrigation and to provide constant uniform lighting.

A lot of work has also been done with nutrient formulas as the uptake of nutrients vary with environment and lighting conditions.

Creating a good environment for optimum growth has also proved very challenging having tried a number of different technologies and methods.

Experimentation on a 24 volt system was also implemented to be able to adapt the system to alternate technologies. It all comes down to providing the best environment to produce a quality crop with the minimum amount of energy and related cost.

Shipping Container Background.

The idea of using a container system is that it provides many advantages. They are very easily transported for any reason and can be manufactured in a single location then shipped or transported to the required location. They can be placed virtually anywhere inside a building on top of buildings or outside and can be stacked one on top of the other. They require a very small foot print. They are eco friendly not causing any environmental harm or damage. They are relatively inexpensive and freely available. They are of a standard configuration thus parts are interchangeable and only a limited set of spare parts need to be kept in stock. Being a standard configuration training and maintenance is easily achieved and does not require a high degree of skill. They are insulated thus outside conditions do not have a great effect to the inside and can be controlled very easy by air exchange. The environment inside can be easily controlled as the volume is a limited size requiring inexpensive equipment. Each container is self contained so if a major equipment failure happens it does not effect other units. Being a self contained unit easy to control pest, diseases and air borne pathogens if a problem occurs in growing it does not spread it can be contained. Control of all criteria required for different stages of growth can be easily adjusted as they are self contained.

After building many different systems and conducting grow trails the NFT system offered the most benefits for vertical growing.

Nutrient uptake is generally proportional to the concentration of nutrients around the roots but in flowing solutions plants are able to grow better over a wide range of concentrations.

NFT has many advantages over other systems of crop production. It has been designed for simplicity, low cost, and dependability. In particular, it gives absolute control of the root environment; it greatly simplifies watering, and ensures a uniform nutrient supply across the whole crop. Root temperature can be raised or lowered easily whenever required merely by warming the nutrient solution or cooling of the nutrient solution, which can be circulated either continuously or intermittently to further conserve energy and to control the growth of plants.

Other advantages include a rapid turnaround between successive crops, the potential for more efficient use of space because of the possibility of plant mobility, and the potential for more efficient use of water. NFT's high degree of control over nutrition, water availability, and root environment makes it the most sophisticated of all commercial plant-culture systems in practice today.

Offering the highest yield potential.

The method of hydroponically growing in a enclosed container is very different from other methods of hydro phonics new techniques have to be employed to ensure efficient and a quality product is produced with very little energy used. Growing is a very complicated art, container growing is even more difficult. The idea is to try and eliminate as much as possible to enable good growing but there is a lot going on all the time. A growers job is very demanding as plants do not take time off you can learn the basics from a book but most of all is experience having visual contact with the plants. I suppose anyone can grow but only at a low efficiency because salads and herbs are low cost crops efficiencies have to be extremely high as energy cost can be high in the container system.

Everything in the container is artificial so a lot of tricks are used requiring a lot of adjustments. Even the best growers have crop failure.

It is the combination of all these techniques that ensure the best results in producing a very high quality product in a very short period of time saving costs on labour and energy.

Hydroponic and greenhouse technology, aquaculture and aquaponics, organic and urban farming technologies are intensive plant production systems that are all well placed to meet the challenges ahead. However, the growing systems of tomorrow will be vastly different to those used today. The present day systems, while a step in the right direction, are unsustainable and in the future it will be necessary to develop alternative production systems that are more efficient in terms of water, energy and labour use.

Identifying the challenges faced by the hydroponics industry worldwide is like forecasting the future and requires some ‘strategic thinking’. In the business world, strategic thinking is a process whereby you learn how to make your business vision a reality by developing your abilities in team work, problem solving, and critical thinking.

The new global economy and the advent of free trade agreements pose significant challenges for the hydroponics industry worldwide. Cheap products flooding international markets take away livelihoods, threaten the stability of existing fresh food markets, and increase the risk of exotic new pests and diseases establishing in countries where they previously didn’t exist, with serious impacts on important commercial crops and natural ecosystems.

A trailer is used for the proto type. A shipping container is the same except the air unit is mounted inside the container in a compartment. The trailer also has sliding doors on the sides making it easy to show the grow area for shows and demonstrations

The proto type was designed for research and can be used in a number of ways. It has a number of different grow systems including Flood And Drain, Deep Flow Hydroponics, Raft Or Floating System, Dripper Systems And NFT Systems.

At the time of building this system we could not source trays that would suit our application or give us the versatility of a system with different sizes

There are three different sizes ;

2.4 meters by 900 mm

2.4 meters by 600mm

1.8 meters by 600mm

These were then made from marine grade ply wood and fibre glassed