Hydroponic farming.
 

Anyone into this method of farming? I've heard you can produce significantly more food year round. You can even grow in indoor places (ie. basement) if you provide all the resources needed for plant growth.

Re: Hydroponic farming.
 

Just go peruse some of the marijuana forums online. They all have growing sections and its the same process. But yes to answer your basic question. You can grow food in-doors hydroponically and not hydroponically and be succesfull.

Re: Hydroponic farming.
 

Aeroponics seems to be a little better.

I have looked into both just a tad, and having been a fish tank hobbyist - I foresee the lighting being a big deal/problem, as in not cost effective. However, I am still searching/seeking an answer and won't give up, but the only problem is I am taking the very slow and low road.

Re: Hydroponic farming.
 

hmm yea I've heard of that. I know that these hydroponic weed operations consume tons of electricity. I am sure there is a simple solution to that. Here is an interesting idea. Also you can always go hydroponically in a greenhouse. However if you plan on growing ultra high density hydroponics you'll need to figure out a solution to the electricity demands. It looks like most of these technologies you'll have to build yourself, otherwise you'll have to spend thousands buying from some startup company (which defeats the whole idea of hydroponic farming).

Re: Hydroponic farming.
 

I have dabbled in it. It can be done in basements, just ask any Canadian "horticulturist". Light intensity and penetration are critical factors. So it is not all about watts or lumens but how well you use them.

There are a lot of variations to growing this way. You can use:

Ebb and Flow. Where water is pumped through the growing tray or channel and across the plant roots and then returns to a reservoir. This is usually done on a timer basis.

Trickle or Dripper. Again you use a tray or channel and you trickle the nutrient solution onto the plants roots. The run off returns to the reservoir.

Aeroponics is where you use those reticulation misters or sprayers and you spray the plants roots to keep them moist. The plants are placed into the lid of a tub of some sort so the roots are suspended. Again the run off returns to the reservoir.

Bubblers are same as aeroponics except the plants roots are suspended in the nutrient solution itself. So the plants container is also the reservoir. Air is bubbled up through the nutrient solution to aerate it. These containers can also be linked upto a central reservoir via retic piping which is kept topped up and automatially levels up wth each of the growing tubs connected to it.

In my experience the key factors are:
Enough light of the right type and penetration. Plants get/use different light spectrum for growing and fruiting. Some lights or lamps give a good mix. Some growers change lamps from one stage to the next.

The right nutirents. I would strongly recommend a good organic nutrient mix because the artifical ones are really salt rich. Now the salts are not a bad thing per se but they can make balancing the PH a time consuming repetitive thing. That means balancing could become a daily chore requiring more and more PH adjusters and larger and larger swings in PH. This makes it hard for the plants to get a good draw on nutirents and slowing overall growth.

Heat. Lights produce a lot of heat and in some weather conditions this can be a good thing, however if the ambient temps are already warm the lights heat will need to be extracted. Vortex type fans are just way better.

If you go a aquaponics or bubbler type setup the reservoir water temps may get cold in winter and again stunt growth. Fish tank heaters can help or heat maps (beware of weight).

If you go the tray method you will need a medium to grow the plants in. It can be clay pebbles, rockwool slabs or choir or a vemiculite type mix. I personally like the pebbles because you can resuse them more easily. They may need soaking to clean the salts off.

The rockwool and choir(coconut fibre) will eventually build up salts and need replacing. I don't know enough to know how many "grows" you will get out of them. The vermiculite is like a small fake stone substance. Hard to describe. This is what most hydro veggies and herbs are grown in that you see in the stores. Just check the pot the roots are in and you will see what I mean.

You can also do some pretty amazing stuff to maximize your light usage and space. You can grow horizontally and vertically. I have seen PVC pipe setup vertically along wall and then horizontal rows of PVC pipe, all with plants growing in them. You could even use the PVC pipes up a wall but stack them up them horizontally.

In terms of lamps I would go with 1000 watt lamps for a basement. A couple of those depending on space. 400watts are good for areas about 1m square or so, depends on the type of plant. 600watt lamps are a bit of a waste. As much heat as a 1000watt but less lumens.

High Pressure sodium is the main flowering lamp type with the right mix of red spectrum. You can get good lamps for these that have enough grow spectrum for the plants (blue).

Metal halide is the main growing type lamp. These are usually a different shape lamp to the HPS ones so different ballasts and shades are required. THis is why most people get a HPS that has a good blue spectrum for growth. There used to be a HPS lamp called Son-t Agro which covered both spectrum ranges nicely. Not sure if it is still made but GE also make a good one. The name of which I forget.

Fluro is not too bad. They do still give off heat but it is much lower than others lamp types. You can make up your own array of lights buy just buying the ballasts, tombstone lamp holders and the globes. You need to check the different lamp types because I forget which are the most intense these days. T8's or T5's? maybe comepletely wrong.

The interesting thing with fluro's is that you can overdrive them. Basically in a dual fluro fitting you have 2 globes and one balast, but with a slight jig of the wiring you can put all of the ballasts power through just one lamp which can double or almost double the light output. The lamp will have a shorter life but it is not half, its like 1/3 shorter. So when you add it all up it becomes cost effective. So you would have 1 ballast per tube instead of 1 ballast for 2 tubes.

Fluros come in cool white (growing) and then a warm white (flowering). Because they are cheap you can swap out the globes depending on the stage you are at. They usually have a number on the globe, like 6000 or 2800(??) depending on whether it is cool or warm. I think it is K for Kelvin. i.e 6000k is natural daylight.

Fluros need to get up close and personal to the plants to be effective.

Now as for resources, I am going to hint to you that the absolute best resources on this type of growing comes from the you know which type of "hobbyists". Try some thing like "grow" and "over" on the google plex and see what comes up. Oh... mix and match those two for best results.

There have been a few segments done on an Australian gardening show and some of the ideas are very simple and work great. Here is their video repository.

http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/video/

Here is one article they did with a short video at the bottom of the page:
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s2451134.htm


I'd suggest you want to really research on ballasts IF You are keen on HPS, because a couple years ago they started to move towards digital ballasts and there were all sorts of problems with them.

My personal interest is in aquaponics with fish where the fish's water is fed through the garden beds. You need good weather all round and a fair bit of yard space.

Here is a guy who I think is just brilliant. It was his hobby and now it is his business. http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1809099.htm

Just check out the crawfish (marron) he is growing plus the fish.... and of course the veggies. Brilliant.

Good luck with it.