Aeroponics Solves a Great Number of Agricultural Problems At Once
Just got back from a hike up the Hot Springs Trail above Montecito, CA with a new friend, Rafael Quezada, and his winsome dog Oso.
I met Rafael last Saturday when I spoke at TechBrew in downtown Los Angeles. After my talk, he approached me to tell me about his business, Waters Wheel, and I was instantly attracted to the idea. If you haven’t checked out aeroponics, the concept of growing plants in a mixture of water vapor and nutrients, I urge you to do so. This solves a great number of problems at the same time. It’s an easy, inexpensive way to grow terrific, organic crops locally. More on this soon.
Some of the people I converse with on the web are doing aquaponics. This is food plants being grown in dirt or small gravel in concert with raising fish in tanks below the plants. Fish live in the tanks below as fish do and the water from the tanks is pumped into the plants which filters and cleanses the water providing nutrients to the plants and then drains back into the fish tank. A symbiotic arrangement that provides vegetables and protien. There is an aquaponics place about 7 miles from me that sells Talipia and vegetables. I haven’t been there yet but I would like to see their operation. The people I know that do this are using solar power to pump the water around making it a complete off grid solution.
And as I am reading around the site here I find a blog entry by Craig for March 2011 about aquaponics.
Aquaponics are a great project to undertake but are problematic to develop commercially. The yield vs. cost ratio is still a marginal case. More critically, care must be taken to assure that the species of fish being bred is not harmful to existing fish stocks in the local environment. The aquaponicist is building an ecosystem, alongside the Earth’s natural balance. It’s not a trivial impact and it should be a well considered decision.