"Vertical Farm at UK Zoo: 20-Fold Increase in Yield Per Acre"

The Link

The vertical farm has been created by Valcent Products as part of their VertiCrop product line. The farm will be growing red chard, mizuna, mixed leaves, and a variety of herbs as well as edible flowers and fodder crops such as wheat grass and barley. Currently the farm imports a wide variety of veggies for their animal feed, so this should provide a local, sustainable alternative for the zoo's residents.

According to the company's materials, the system requires just 5% of the water for field crops, produces 20 times the yield per acre, and can be built almost anywhere.

Holy WOW

5% of the water and 20x the yield!?! That is very very impressive!

A bit from the systems developer:

Valcent Products Inc. (OTCBB: VCTZF) introduces its revolutionary VertiCrop high density vertical growth system, technology that provides a solution to rapidly increasing food costs caused by transportation/fuel costs spiraling upwards with the cost of oil. Together with higher cost comes a reduction in availability and nutritional values in the food we consume.

The VertiCrop system grows plants in a suspended tray system moving on an overhead conveyor system. The system is designed to provide maximum sunlight and precisely correct nutrients to each plant. Ultraviolet light and filter systems exclude the need for herbicides and pesticides. Sophisticated control systems gain optimum growth performance through the correct misting of nutrients, the accurate balancing of PH and the delivery of the correct amount of heat, light and water.

The Link

This is all very 'Jetsons' to me, but hey it is a rather productive system that defiantly contributes to local food production, just in a manner I would have not dreamed up myself. All in all I give these guys two thumbs up and I look forward to hearing updates on the success of this system and its first run at this Zoo!

People have been using this technique to grow marijuana for years. Cylindrical growrooms with the light source central and from floor to ceiling and plants grown in circular and in vertical rows, or like bookshelves.

[edit on 30-8-2009 by quackers]

reply to post by quackers


quackers, i sadly have to ask that you remove the content of your post

after having other threads of mine deleted due to references to drugs i can only expect the same here.

so please, delete the content or at least the reference to drugs. thanks. and sorry for being a bummer.

It gives me hope that new ways of doing things are emerging and make it much more believable that we can be absolutely independent:
1) Grow your own food.
2) Harvest your own energy
3)Easy access to medical information and its alternative treatments.

etc...

Societal growth is organic, and is outpacing government and it's relentless attempts to maintain us dependent.

reply to post by Animal


I dont think it would be removed for that. that is just a fact that alot of people know, and it does pitch in in this case. so if its removed, ill be surprised.


great find btw, very very interesting!

Animal, great post. I would not worry about it being deleted as Quackers is simply stating a well-known fact and did not go into further detail. That beng said, he is absolutely correct that vertical farming (otherwise known as coliseum or stadium farming) has been around for a few years now. I believe the technique originated from marijuana growers but soon caught on with the rest of the industry as a whole. Coliseum farming is readily googlable with many sites showing that have nothing to do with marijuana or anything illegal.

This particular technique seems to have not so much expanded on but modified the typical coliseum style setup with a light in the centre. This seems to have been modified to be made workable under natural lighting conditions in a greenhouse setup, making it unique and probably the first of it's kind in the world. It takes the advantages of being able to fit many plants into a smaller area and makes it workable under natural lighting!

Great post!