High-Performance Gardening

There are significant benefits to be had in making high-performance gardening more broadly accessible than it currently is. The technology can reduce water use by over 90%, cut fertilizer use by over 60%, and improve the flavor and nutritional value of food compared to growing it in depleted soils. 

However, large commercial hydroponic operations have limited crop selections that are usually bred for appearance rather than flavor and nutrition, and they're harvested early to survive long distribution channels. The result is low-quality food that spoils soon after being purchased by the consumer, or even before it reaches the grocery store.

Medium-sized commercial hydroponic operations are usually located in or near big cities, so time to market is not usually an issue. Still, crop selection is even more limited, usually to just leafy greens.

Consumer hydroponic systems tend to be costly, confusing, and clunky. Nevertheless, there are about 2,000 retail stores in the US catering to millions of hydroponic hobbyists who stand to become evangelists for the next generation of a “High-Performance Gardening” product line. Early adopters will educate others on best practices, and they could get involved in setting up, monitoring systems, and helping others to get started. 

$50 for one strawberry?

In Japan, some strawberries sell for $50 each or more, and some cantaloupes sell for $300 and up. These are especially high-quality fruits with intensely delicious flavors. This is the direction the most High-Performance Gardening systems will be going. However, in some regions of the world, hunger is a major concern. To serve people from the base to the top of the economic pyramid, Seymour HPG addresses abundance and quality.

In addition to requiring minimal inputs of water and fertilizer, produce grown in these systems can be hyper-local, harvested at peak ripeness and peak nutrition, with minimal to zero transportation costs.

An average meal in the US travels 1,500 miles to the table.

Instead of growing in depleted soils, plants in these systems can be fed complete plant food with a full array of trace minerals and the selection of crops to be grown locally in the open air can be far greater than that of indoor grow operations, and can include just about any fruits, vegetables, aromatics, medicinals, herbs, flowers, and more that can be grown in a backyard garden in a given region.

Eating fresh produce, which is ~95% water, can be an important means of hydrating the body. This is particularly true in regions where water is scarce and or not suitable for drinking. A pint-sized cucumber or some other high-water-content fruit or vegetable could very well be healthier than a pint of water.

Our systems are simple enough for a child to set up and use to grow a wide variety of plants at the same time and harvest thousands of pounds per season in a typical backyard. The systems scale from smaller than a parking spot to larger than a football field, from personal to community, and even niche commercial operations.

A simple Seymour HPG system requires only 20 Watts from an AC adapter and has battery backup & solar power options. Having simple controls for casual users, easy access to advanced controls for more sophisticated users, and wireless networking for increased functionality. Some of the durable components could last 20 years or longer.

Since these are life-support systems and may be used where power is unreliable, we will provide cost-effective battery backup options. And if they are used off-grid, they can use solar power. However, about half the world’s population has a reliable power supply and won't need battery backup or solar panels, unless they want to cut the cord.

Victory Gardens

By the end of WWII, 50% of households in the US grew 40% of the nation's produce in Victory Gardens in backyards, vacant lots, and on rooftops. This translates to a potential for something like 50 million Victory Gardens in the US today and 1 billion worldwide. There's a lot of security and satisfaction in having a vegetable garden, but few among us have the time for tilling, weeding, watering, fertilizing, etc.

The Trajectory of Technology

1929 Modern Hydroponics got its start at UC Berkeley.

1940s, Hydroponics was used on the Pacific Islands to help feed troops.

1960s, Walt Disney included hydroponics in his plans for EPCOT, which is still a premier showcase of what can be done with hydroponics.

1970s & 80s Hydroponic hobby stores start opening, catering primarily to connoisseurs of cannabis.

1990s, Commercial hydroponics grew rapidly, with some operations covering hundreds of acres under glass.

2000s, Many hundreds of additional hydroponic hobby stores opened in the US, but key technology is lacking for this to go mainstream.

2010s Technological advancements in unrelated fields can be used to create hydroponic systems suitable for average people to grow thousands of pounds of food in a typical backyard.

Soon, hundreds of millions of average people will have access to High-Performance growing.

~ S