Skyscraper Farm of the Future
Dickson Despommier, a 67-year-old microbiologist at Columbia University suggests that skyscraper farms will be the future of agriculture. With the world’s population forecast to grow from 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion by the year 2050, a massive amount of agricultural land will be required to feed us. And with 41 percent of the world already being used for agricultural purposes, not including the land we live and work on, it poses a major problem. Where will expansion come from? Given a finite amount of land available, Despommier believes it’s time to think upward. Despommier, who also sits on the board of New York Sun Works and is responsible for the urban-farm floating barge, came up with the idea eight years ago while teaching.
The skyscraper farms would be about 30 storeys and each structure would easily feed around 50,000 people under its current design. The skyscraper farm will not be cheap, however; the prototype is currently priced at approximately one billion dollars. Despommier is currently looking for investors.
Many local city governments are now offering composting bins to their residents in order to promote green behavior. An average family produces over 500 lbs. of compostable garbage every year. That is 500 lbs. of garbage that can be reused as mulch instead of going to the local land fill. This may be why my own home town of Raleigh is subsidising over half of the cost of Earth Machine composters. For $32, Raleigh residents can pick up an Earth Machine from the Solid Waste Services Department.
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When is Your Water Too Dirty?
Let’s look at a possible scenario. Say you test your water and learn that the ppm is 300 and the hardness (calcium and magnesium) is 11 grains or 188 ppm (1 grain of hardness is equal to 17.1 ppm hardness).
Because you’re on well water you surmise the other 112 ppm are other minerals, such as iron, and possibly sulphur. The water tastes great to you and your friends and everyone believes it would be great water to garden with. It’s time to transplant some freshly rooted cuttings into larger containers. You know you are working with a variety of flowers that are sensitive to high ppm in their early stages. You want to keep your feed formula at around 400 ppm for the first week. At this point do you add 400 ppm of food to your water that is already 300 ppm or do you only add 100 ppm food? That’s the dilemma — you can never accurately control the amounts of critical inputs your plants need to feed properly.
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Most growers have ppm pens or monitors that can tell them the quality of their water. This is a good starting point, but knowing the hardness (calcium and magnesium) of the water is important, to see how much of the ppm is the hardness and how much is other contaminants. There is a myriad of other substances that can be read by a ppm pen. Sources for ppm in your water include agricultural runoff, urban runoff, industrial waste water, sewage, and natural sources such as leaves, silt, plankton, and rocks. Piping or plumbing may also release metals into the water and add to the ppm.
Below is a guide to identifying certain water problems:
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If you’re looking for a true challenge when it comes to an indoor pest, look no further than the leaf miner. The leaf miner is more of a threat to an indoor gardener using a greenhouse, but leaf miners have been known to develop in any indoor garden when conditions are right.
Although there are standard ways to deal with most pests, even identifying these pests can be challenge. The adult leaf miner looks exactly like small fly. Without an expertise in entomology, you probably will not be able to spot them, even if you study them on sticky yellow monitoring tape.
The problem with leaf miner is that they do exactly what the name implies — mine the leaf of your plant. Basically, the adult leaf miner lays an egg on the leaf of the plant and it hatches a larva. In turn, the small larva tunnels between the upper and lower surfaces of the leaf and goes to work. And, of course, because it is between the layers of the leaf, it is protected form any sprays you might want to use. Read the rest of this entry »