2018 Vertical Farming, Hydroponics & Aquaponics Systems

With the Grand Solar Minimum intensifying, I have been looking for indoor vertical farming solutions, because I really believe that’s where the investment will be focused. It has to be low-tech, easy maintenance with high yield and here we go, I think I found something you’re really going to like; Vertical Hydroponic Grow Tube Systems.

Rob Virgin starting Taiwan Hydroponics Development Company at Taiwanhydroponics.com. Rob invited me over on Saturday morning and says “hey come up to the rooftop and take a look at what we’re doing up there, we have a few other test facilities around Taipei, we can wander throughout the afternoon to take a look and see what’s growing and how we’re growing”. Right away you’ll notice that the tube system can be disassembled.”

Beyond being on rooftops, one of the great things is the Vertical Grow Tubes can be hung on walls or anywhere inside greenhouses as long as there’s vertical space, you can start growing.

This is an example of what’s considered a “rooftop installation”, and when you put up four or five of these in a row you can make a full wall garden.

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The tubes are quite easy to explain, ventilation on both the right and left side within the housing to prevent mold and fungus so there’s more airflow, Center coconut coir you can push in making an opening to put in the plant and roots, then you drip the water through. The choir itself has a lot of nutrients and at the same time you can mix in liquid fertilizers created for vertical agriculture by the same developers. Center ridged curvature is also made to drain water away more easily and at the bottom you’ll see the coupler.

A deep look into the tube, very simple, very sturdy and take notice of the shape which is very difficult to bend, even if you step on it, it does not collapse or bend.

Looking at the bottom sturdy and simple as well, everything can be disassembled.

Look at the back of the tubes, you have to realize that these tubes have been on that roof for three years. Wear and tear is minimal, it’s a drip feed system that operates on a simple pump and a timer.

You can disassemble this, take one of the tubes off and transport it as a single tube, “a living food tube” if you will. Restaurants and farmer’s markets are starting to grow this way, where they bring the actual tube and then you clip off what you would like in terms of fresh produce.

If you’re going to a salad bar you can clip off what you like as well. Rob said he’s taken these to a couple of parties and put that on in the middle of the table then people come by and make their own salads during dinner parties. Very lightweight as well and then once you’re done, hang it back up again the plants will start to regrow.

We were talking about yields, this is some spearmint here, spearmint / peppermint they like a lot of water so these drip feed systems are perfect as water levels can be adjusted. Yields coming off of these tubes.

All the images I took myself, this set we’re taking a look at types of medicinal plants, herbs and spices that are being grown in these same tubes.

High density and very lush, high yields off small area.

Notice the buckets at the bottom, those aren’t for water, those are to hold the system down in higher winds.

These are some of the native plants around in Taiwan that are used for medicinal purposes as well as food.

Roof top view, that is a movie set you’re looking at where they produce sagas, soap operas, and some movie scenes.

Glimpsing into Rob’s balcony here, this is another type of grow system there in the corner.

Let me zoom that in for you, tower system where you can place anywhere. Under that what looks like wood is a container is a water pump with the timer so everything is free flowing on a timed system.

Rob told me that they had a couple of orders coming in and have a bunch of tubes ready for one of their customers, would I like to see what they have. I was curious how they can scale this out because when we come into the Grand Solar Minimum, we’re going to need millions of these tubes.

With LED lighting, and retrofitting disused factories or shopping malls, this would be really easy to install. Tubes come as a standard set height.

You can choose to have the coconut coir fitted for you as delivery or you can fit it yourself. You can buy the sheets which they also offer and use a simple hook and it pulls right through into the center. See where the two pieces come together and that’s allows space to make a hole and then drop your seed or the sprout root system inside there and you’re ready to go.

In the afternoon headed out to an area outside Taipei, a little neighborhood from the early 1900’s now they’re starting to refurb these buildings and then turn it into an AG zone, and open it up to the public for students and researchers.

Home Aquaponics has built this facility using their own funds and donations, but they have some new greenhouses that they’re putting up here.

A look inside,they want this to be is more of an experimentation for hanging vertical gardens or anything in floating hydroponics or aeroponics.

Rob was there to install their Vertical Tube Grow System; this is what the finished unit looks like next to what was a traditional drip through aeroponic system. Where the water drips from one basket to the next and, you can see a bit of lettuce growing out of that bottom cup. Everything’s feeding off just a reused recycled water system.

You can see the system here, caps are on the ground, easy it is to put it together.

Hang the tubes up with the hooks, the caps aren’t on the bottom yet as the drainage tube is not in there yet.

A few screws some power drills, and it’s really easy to assemble anybody can do it.

At the end of it they planted some seeds in there, and then after three weeks this is the result. From this point forward then it’s going to continue to increase in the density.

Zoom in here, to get an idea of how quickly that this can grow out.

I encourage you to jump over to their Facebook page of Home Aquaponics, because they do have an enormous amount of research going on there. This is open to the public, it’s not a research facility limited to a university that only accepts certain people and certain ideas. If you have an idea come and test it out.

One of the first build outs there was this what I talked about aeroponics Rock drip system.

They also had some “floating gardens” in there, if you want to term it that. These are snapped together as a plug and play aquaponics cup system.

They were growing different types of vegetables with a couple different types of aquaponic floating ponds systems with fish underneath. They had goldfish probably bout thirty goldfish with some koi.

Also full-on aeroponics what you consider the regular clay pebbles that drain rise and drain on a time system.

Everything is fan controlled and brand new inside there. Orchards out back as well behind the greenhouses.

They have traditional orchards where you can plant if you have a garden idea. I was talking about growing Moringa out here.

There are already people growing different types of teas etc. with the dried flowers and medicinal herbs.

This is one of the greenhouses with functional aquaponics vegetable supply business, you can see the fish tanks at the very end. The lettuce yield is supplying an enormous amount of restaurants and hotels.

It’s a system, what they do is they take the seedlings and put them in plugs first, which you see floating on these rafts.

At the end, this is what you get. So how do you go from the plugs to the end result here of fully grow lettuce?

Take a look down the floating trays. You can see the progression as they harvest at the far end, they float the styrofoam trays forward, come back and start the process all over again.

I’ll take you through the process, small seedlings those are put into the trays.

And then they have an enormous amount of different types of lettuce, and once they reach a certain size they re-transplant them into something that looks like this.

Mid-size, larger size and at the end they’re waiting for the last growth stage to harvest.

Whatever comes up first, they try to put everything together by type of lettuce, makes it a little bit easier at harvest.

Continuous harvesting.

Since we went on a weekend they’d already ended up doing a lot of harvesting because Friday and Saturday the restaurant and hotel demand is much higher.

They’d harvested most of what was considered mature at the far end down there but look how much is still remains.

It brings us through the interim phase here, two weeks after they initially put the cubes in and it grows out from there.

They leave the spacing for rotation based on how wide or how thick the lettuce variety is going to become.

It’s great way for them to generate revenue to be able to continue to buy equipment there, along with donations that they receive from people who like this type of venue in the city where people can come out, take a look, bring the kids, it’s a great day.

There’s some walking around there as well, and it’s in an old part of town with old brick buildings.

Let’s take a look at the types of produce coming out of there. Open your mind as to what you can do in your own local area as well.

Different types / varities of lettuce coloration in the background.

I don’t even know the name of this type, it’s a little bit bitter, kitchen chefs were in there and they come specifically for this type of lettuce and is a highly sought after variety for the hotel crowd.

They were growing some different types of baby arugula.

Spinach that you’d be familiar with.

Another variety of high-value lettuce, hadn’t seen this one before. I saw two firsts in this grow facility. Some varieties are Asia specific.

You can see exactly what the float is approximately how wide this spacing is, how dense you can get these to grow together, and how much food you can really produce. If you only had one of these raceways here, how much you could really grow?

At the very end all this water is being recirculated straight into the large green fiberglass fish tanks. Everything has its own bio-loop and those are four thousand liter tanks.

They have four different types of fish in the tanks, which they also sell, so it’s a money-making facility and it’s shown it can be done.

Also Rob Virgin’s vertical grow tubes, that is in my opinion one of the solutions we need for the Grand Solar Minimum. You can contact Rob over at “Taiwan hydroponics.com”, or send an email info at “Taiwanhydroponics.com” tell him David DuByne from ADAPT 2030 sent you.

Thanks for reading, hope you got something out of the article. It was an incredibly informative day in my life, and these are the ideas I want to share as we move forward. Also Mini Ice Age Conversations Podcast 3x a week is all about bringing these ideas to the forefront, so we can work together to find solutions as our crop yields decline descending deeper into the new Grand Solar Minimum.

*** Today’s Story Links ***

Taiwan Hydroponics Vertical Grow Tube System www.taiwanhydroponics.com