Farming: A look at the Aquaponics system of Nate Storey
A warning on the idea of hydro culture use in vertical farming by a Dutchman who knows the story: the Dutch Wasserbomben tomatoes ("water bombs")
the Dutch Wasserbomben tomatoes ("water bombs")
If you all now think hydro culture use in Vertical farms is the answer to all our problems I should warn you there is a ugly angle to this way of growing your crop. If you do not use the right fertilizers and /or minerals your product will taste like "water" and not like vegetables or fruit. We had a German led consumer protest against the Dutch Wasserbomben tomatoes ("water bombs") in the 1980 and 1990.
The tomatoes looked very healthy, very big, but they tasted like a mouth full of water. What they in general they also are - 70% of a vegetable or fruit consist only water. It will be the minerals in the soil which normally give the tomatoes and other vegetable the taste and that is very hard to copy in hydro culture without biologically produced fertilizer and minerals. See:
A quote of: Dutch Food Safety Policy: From ‘Politics in the Stable’ to Stable Politics DOI: 10.1080/09505431.2011.563573 -- Katharina T. Paula* -- pages 209-229
Or for free, if you are quick - a pdf file download of the complete Chapter Six -- Dutch Food Safety Policy: From ‘Politics in the Stable’ to Stable Politics http://dare.uva.nl/document/135254
There are of course ways out of this trap. One is using soil for plant medium and another is Aquaponics which uses a combination from hydroculture and a fish farming in a closed water system, where the water is fertilized by the fish and plants and used to grow vegetables and the waste water of the plants is after cleansing reused in the fish farm. Here are two videos on how the system works and is build by Nate Storey (the sound quality of this videos need improvement, I think - Ak Malten) and also his photos see link below are very informative:
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