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ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system
- gonesilent 7y ago$399 for $25 in plastic. Go to home depot and buy some rain plastic gutters.
- golemiprague 7y agoAt the late nineties someone offered me to make a startup storing files on an "online hard drive" via a web interface. Why would you need it i asked, just use ftp... little did I know. Sometimes simplicity and packaging worth money to people. Not everybody know how to cut pipes and modify them, people don't have time or space or will to do it, they want something that is working from the get go.
- swiftcoder 7y agoEvery time one of these vertical/rotating indoor farms comes onto the market (usually via crowdfunding), it has roughly the same level of cost inflation. Haven't quite figured out who they are conning into buying these setups.
- gullyfur 7y agoWhat's the best DIY video on building something like this? I don't even know where to start.
- zo1 7y agoI saw this guy a while back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzcC6zkDDiY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzcC6zkDDiY I think he got a lot of flack for pointing out that the zip-grow towers are way overpriced and you can DIY them yourself reasonably well. There really isn't anything too-complicated about the ZipGrow towers, other than that they use a sponge as a media.
- gullyfur 7y agoThank you!
- Bertio 7y agoI have a way overpriced aerogarden farm and for me it's really just decor along the lines of having an aquarium. It certainly doesn't yield enough of anything to be worth the price. I contemplated something DIY but I didn't think I could get the clean aesthetics. I have a 3d printer now so I could probably make something that looks less like a hack now.
- bootlooped 7y agoSquare vinyl fence post or large diameter PVC pipe are commonly used with Nutrient Film Technique aka NFT. Both super cheap at Home Depot as well.
- jseliger 7y agoThis is reminiscent of the people who ask, "Why would anyone buy a pre-loaded Linux laptop, Dell's Developer Editions, when you can already install it on an older Thinkpad?" Service, support, ease of use and setup, and, in the case of something that might be visible in a readily trafficked area, aesthetics. If those things are not valuable to you (and they may not be) then you are not the target audience.
- Pfhreak 7y agoHaving built a system in my basement to grow basil, spinach, and lettuce, there's a whole lot more to it than $25 in plastic. First, you should use food grade plastic, then there are lights, a pump, shelving, growing medium, fertilizer, ph adjustment, extension cords, timers, cups, air tubing, and air stone, and a bunch of other stuff. Then you have to get it all home, double and triple check you are doing it correctly. I don't think I spent $500, but no way anyone can put together an equivalent system for $25. Like most things, there's a lot more complexity than people realize.
- flagada 7y agoI don't really understand the whole "urban agriculture" crowd. People do often live in crowded cities, but there's plenty of space to grow stuff on outside of cities. It's the same kind of thinking that gave us the solad roads (which were, predictably, a catastrophic failure).
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoIf (a really big IF) solar panels can get efficient enough while LEDs also become more efficient, in theory plants grown indoors being fed by LEDs attuned to the precise portions of the spectrum they need with the whole thing powered by the solar panels, you could get a better yield than outdoor growing. Figure out cost effective fusion, things get even better. But neither is the case right now. As far as the urban agriculture crowd goes, they're concerned about the length of their logistics lines to their tables. Raspberries grown half a mile down the street in winter is better for the environment than flying them in from another hemisphere... provided you get the energy costs of the indoor farming system low enough.
- wallacoloo 7y ago> As far as the urban agriculture crowd goes, they're concerned about the length of their logistics lines to their tables. Raspberries grown half a mile down the street in winter is better for the environment than flying them in from another hemisphere. Aside from environmental effects, it’s also just a more secure logistics chain. A person needs water, food, and shelter to survive. Sometimes it feels strange to me that the trend of the past centuries has been to increase the distance between a person and those sources — to introduce more points of failure between you and the things you need in order to survive.
- fyfy18 7y agoAnother commenter mentioned it's more energy efficient to grow tomatoes in Spain - where less heat is needed - and fly them to the UK. That may be true, but an even better way is to just grow crops that are suitable for that season. In the UK you can grow crops all year round outdoors [0], and the growing seasons could easily be extended with a passive greenhouse (polycarbonate is more insulating than glass). You can also use tried and tested preservation techniques like canning and fermenting to keep food for other seasons. [0] https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/vegetables-all-year-round https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/vegetables-all-year-round
- vangelis 7y agoGet yourself some plastic containers, a Rain Bird starter kit, some LEDs, and you've got yourself your own indoor grow op for much cheaper.
- dublinben 7y agoThere's an entire community building these makeshift "space buckets" for growing plants indoors. https://www.spacebuckets.com/ https://www.spacebuckets.com/ https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceBuckets/ https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceBuckets/
- blargmaster33 7y agoAnd it'as all drug related
- elcritch 7y agoI worked for the company that developed the technology. Personally not much of a green-thumb myself, but it's great to see how much you can grow with vertical towers, either in a greenhouse or indoors with LED lights. You can grow about 3-4x what you would get with a flat grow bed for many plants [1]. While the towers are great, the real trick is the grow media as you want it robust enough to survive while not suffocating the roots. For those interested in starting your own farm or just gardening I'd highly recommend "UpStart Farmers" [2]. A friend of mine help's moderate it and is really focused on helping people learn vertical farming and aquaponics. They have an enormous selection of content regarding various aspects such as nutrient mixes, dealing with pests, etc. The community is also active and helpful to each other. FYI: This is from the Canadian licensee's of the original Bright Agrotech that was acquired by Plenty Ag [3]. I'm bullish that indoor farming will be a big boon in providing more localized and therefore fresh and nutritional vegetables and leafy greens for much of the world's population. The economics are slowly improving with LED efficiency increases and capital infusion to scale farms. 1: https://search.proquest.com/openview/ccf876147b3e8a224da6770203e5fa4d/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y https://search.proquest.com/openview/ccf876147b3e8a224da6770... 2: https://www.upstartfarmers.com https://www.upstartfarmers.com 3: https://www.plenty.ag/the-feed/plenty-acquires-bright-agrotech-to-globally-scale-impact-of-local-farmers/ https://www.plenty.ag/the-feed/plenty-acquires-bright-agrote...
- doctoboggan 7y agoI thought the technology looked familiar. I had been following the Bright Agrotech people on YouTube for a while, they produced great content for those interested in indoor hydroponics for the home grower. Do you know what happened to the company? Did they go bankrupt and have to liquidate their IP?
- eurekaSky 7y agoThey were bought out by a company from Cali. Bright Agrotech started in Laramie Wyoming. Their first "major" greenhouses were behind the building that my company was in. Really interesting people.
- 7y ago
- bootlooped 7y agoI am skeptical about the reusability of the media. How hard is it to clean all the dead roots out of it? How do you sterilize it for reuse?
- hanniabu 7y agoIt's generally not feasible to reuse, not to mention if it's not done properly then you put the next crop cycle at risk.
- gdubs 7y agoI remember seeing this one a while back and thinking it was a cool concept — I wonder if anyone’s tried on / what’s become of it: https://www.fastcompany.com/3037719/turn-your-kitchen-into-a-garden-with-this-mini-fridge-sized-electric-farm https://www.fastcompany.com/3037719/turn-your-kitchen-into-a...
- orasis 7y agoI own 20 ZipGrow towers and have become quite disillusioned with them across 3 growing seasons. The biggest problem is that there is nothing to buffer moisture on the roots if there is an intermittent problem. You might get a nice crop of basil growing and then a clogged emitter for 12 hours can be the death of those plants. Here are all of the failure modes I have experienced: - pump dying - Leak in base causing all water gone in 24 hours - clogged emitters - water choosing off route through tower and not hitting the plants on top - emitters getting blown off causing water to spray outside tower - circuit breakers trip from pump Overall I’ve probably lost half of everything I’ve planted in a zipgrow. A professional operation with a daily maintenance routine could probably use them, but they are no panacea.
- elasticventures 7y agoIt's worth mentioning that the facebook forums for hydroponics farming are full of people trying to sell these things second hand with no explanation 'why'.
- orasis 7y agoI should clarify that the problems I experience are probably not specific to ZipGrow, but would happen to any vertical hydroponics that require functioning system to keep roots damp. Soil is an amazing technology.
- freepor 7y agoGrowing food crops with artificial light is the most moronic idea I’ve ever heard.
- mohankumar246 7y agoThe economical value of growing veggies after paying city rents/wages/ and infra investment doesn't paint a good picture profit wise. The food business is mostly based on low wages paid to immigrant employees. It works because usually these people live in rural areas. Look at the milk price. I haven't seen it increase in 5 years..
- tjomk 7y agoI think the goal here is going distributed so that by moving the end produce closer to you, you save on packaging, logistics, and other expenses. Plus growing something gives you joy. Doing that in schools teaches kids about farming, about food, and how it gets on their table. I'm doing the same at home to teach my children the same. Also in the times of the crisis you reduce the pressure to producers and shops by consuming your own instead of going to the shop.