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Vertical farming, the best solution to support an ever growing population or just a scam?
IMHO it has a lot of potential but not being able to grow grains really is something that should be tackled sooner rather than later. But I could see this being used by self sustaining communities to provide lots of food while using very little space. And it's technically more environmentally friendly than just using vast stretches of land to produce the same amount of food.
It sounds like a good idea for the crops in which it can be a solution for. I was thinking of ordering my own vertical garden for mushroom variety.
THEY EXIST FOR MUSHROOMS???? Please do send a link of the one you buy I am extremely curious to see it
A lot of mushroom farms put mushie blocks on racks, but that's because it's just kinda the best way to optimize for the limited space available in a lot of cases. After all, you have to control the humidity, temps, and possible contam vectors so that you maximize your harvest. If you're curious, look up mossy creek mushrooms on youtube, think they have a tour of their growing setup.
I certainly will.
I fail to see what the pillar provides over just having a bunch of plants in a wire rack or shelves, beyond automating the act of watering -- which there are already better ways to do anyway, ones that don't involve having a bizarre, potentially-maintenance-heavy solution like what the pillar presents... or you could just water your plants by hand.
As such, this pillar feels like an entirely unnecessary thing. They've reinvented shelves, with watering. Loud shelves, because that contraption must make noise. They're not even good shelves. I'll just take regular shelves, thanks, and a watering can.
OP's example is the wrong way to do it as they water plants in soil, there are plenty of hydroponic towers that you can 3d print and what they do is allow you to have hydroponics (growing plants in water) with very little space requirement so that works great in small gardens or appartment balconies.
Sure. But still, why a tower? Even at their best, towers are just shelves that require more floorspace.
A tower design like in the OP's picture allows separating the humid root-space from the general work environment which has some practical advantages and I guess also lowers the risk of fungal infections of the roots.
With drought being more common than ever and increasingly so, I believe vertical farming is necessary. It's much more water efficient than open fields. Also, we need more forest instead of fields to keep a sustainable biodiversity.
However, currently it's only possible for certain kinds of plants to grow in vertical farms.
Another interesting developing method is agrivoltiac farming. We're going to see more of that sooner than vertical farming.
Geography, geography, geography. It completely depends on where you live. Remember, climate change doesn’t just mean hot and dry. Some places will get dry, some will get wet. There will be winners and losers.
Look’s like something you’d build in Minecraft.