High-tech agriculture: The extraordinary profits of hydroponic vegetable farming

Through this technique, farmers can get between 450 and 550 tons of vegetables per acre, compared to the average yield of 15 tons per acre from traditional farming, according to Fareed Farmhouse project director Rana Zahid. PHOTO: FILE

Tahir Rana is a nuclear physicist who gave up a job in Canada to set up a vegetable farm in Faisalabad. He is part of a growing number of people worldwide who have been drawn in by the extraordinary profits in hydroponic vegetable farming, a new method that dramatically increases productivity and thus farmer incomes.

Hydroponic farms are unique in that they do not require any fertile soil. Indeed many of the world’s largest hydroponic farms are set up in the deserts of the Middle East or unfertile soils in other parts of the world. Seeds are placed in a growing medium – which can be either solid or liquid – in trays made from steel pipes. The advantage of this system is that nearly all of the nutrients poured into the growing medium are absorbed by the plant, making it exponentially more efficient and increasing productivity manifold.

Rana has set a up a small company just outside Faisalabad called Fareed Farmhouse, where he produces three varieties of tomato (cherry tomato, strawberry tomato, beef tomato), cucumber and capsicum. His production capacity is significantly above the norm.

“Through this technique, farmers can get between 450 and 550 tons of vegetables per acre, compared to the average yield of 15 tons per acre using traditional farming,” said Rana Zahid, the project director at Fareed Farmhouse.

Rana uses coconut waste imported from Sri Lanka as the solid medium in which he grows his plants. The vegetable plants are then irrigated through a water injection system. Fareed Farm uses reverse osmosis water purification systems to ensure the quality of the water.

Each plant requires up to two litres of water per day, which needs to be slightly acidic, with a pH of 5.8, according to Zahid.

Fareed Farmhouse produces relatively high-end vegetables that are consumed by higher income customers. His buyers include some of the large retail and wholesale chains in the country as well as hotels that have traditionally imported many of these vegetables from Europe.

Rana sells the tomatoes for about Rs225 per kilogram, compared to the cost of importing them from the Netherlands, which can run as high as Rs800 per kilogram. The seeds for the tomatoes at Fareed Farmhouse are imported from Canada and many of the other raw materials from China and Sri Lanka. Yet while the imported raw materials can be expensive, the method allows the company to save on other expenses.

“Our production method allows us to not use any kind of pesticides,” said Rana Arshad, a quality control officer at Fareed farmhouse.

The methods used by Fareed Farmhouse, however, do not come cheap. Hydroponic farming requires an investment of up to Rs1.5 million per acre, though it can yield net profits of up to Rs3 million per acre annually. Tahir Rana, however, is not content with just reaping the rewards of the existing techniques. He plans to spend up to Rs4 million in researching new methods and new variants of seeds. He is also planning on rapidly expanding his production base to up to 20 acres in the Faisalabad area.

Rana is a firm believer in the potential of hydroponic farming to transform Pakistani agriculture. “Every year, we import vegetables from India. If the government takes an interest in promoting these new technologies, we would not need to import from other countries. In fact, the country could earn a lot of foreign exchange by exporting to other countries.”

While Fareed Farmhouse is thus far focused on high-end vegetables, it appears that the company believes this method can be used to produce more mass market products as well.

The Express Tribune

Hydroponic Gardening, For A 'Soil-Free' Garden!

Want to learn the a new way of gardening? One which does not need soil? Then, try hydroponics, a new method to grow plants without using soil. Instead, hydroponic gardening uses water to grow plants. Mineral nutrient solutions are used in water to grow plants of different types.

There are two methods involved in hydroponic gardening – solution and medium culture. The former uses on a nutrient solution to grow plants, while the latter uses a solid medium for the roots such as coconut husk, pumice, sand, mineral wool or gravel.

Steps to build a hydroponics garden:

1.The first important step in hydroponic gardening system is to decide the type and quantity of plants that you are planning to grow. You can grow your garden indoors or outdoors.

2.Collect the following items to create your hydroponic gardening system, water hoses, air and water pumps, pipes and drums.

3.Dissolve the plant nutrients that are in the inorganic and ionic form, in water. The plant nutrient solutions can be purchased from nutrient manufactures.

4.Depending on the plant type, make equidistant holes in the pipes.

5.Wash off all the soil from the saplings you intend to plant.

6.Carefully place the saplings in the water.

7.Check and add water whenever required. Purchase a Ph tester and CF meter to check the nutrient level in the water.

8.Ensure that your plants get enough sunlight and plenty of air too. Regularly check the roots, as they might rot and die. Keep away pests.

9.Once your vegetables grow, harvest them.

10.Clean out the entire system using copper and peroxide solutions, so that all bacteria is killed. Then repeat the process of growing your plants.

Before you start your hydroponic garden, make sure have lots of energy and time to monitor your plants constantly. Your care is most important for your hydroponic garden.

Hydroponic gardening

Hydroponics Gardening Basics

By Suzanne S. Wiley

Hydroponic gardening uses water and aggregate media in place of soil when growing plants. It offers you more control over environmental conditions and nutrition. Hydroponic gardening allows you to grow fruit and vegetables out of season and in areas not normally hospitable to those you want to grow. The Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service notes that hydroponic gardening does require skill and a bigger financial outlay than soil gardening. Hydroponic systems vary in setup and operation.

Physical Structure

Hydroponic gardens can have one apparatus or separate parts that hold the plants, media and nutrient solutions. The bottom container or portion of the apparatus holds a liquid nutrient solution and pumps to move the nutrients and air up to the roots of the plants. The top portion or container holds a growing tray or platform with the plants, plus a delivery-and-return system for the nutrient solution. The delivery-and-return system can involve tubes or hoses that drip the nutrient solution into the growing tray, where it drips off the roots and into a tube leading back to the nutrient pool, or a mister next to the plants' roots. The "wick" system places absorbent wicks between the nutrient pool and the growing media. One type of liquid system places the plants in a floating platform on the nutrient pool, with the roots immersed in the nutrients.

Culture Systems

Hydroponic systems don't bury the plant and its roots in soil. In a liquid culture system, the plant is inserted into a supportive tray, tube or thin layer of material like vermiculite or pebbles, with the roots hanging free. In an aggregate culture system, it is placed inside a medium like rockwool, gravel or vermiculite that surrounds the roots. The Virginia Cooperative Extension says liquid systems typically involve the roots sitting in a nutrient bath or film, or next to a misting system, and aggregate systems have the roots bound up in material that allows for good drainage but still manages to hold nutrients around the roots. If you've grown lucky bamboo that sits in a glass of water or a bed of pebbles and water, you've worked with hydroponic culture.

Food

Hydroponic systems deliver nutrients directly to the roots, and you can customize solutions. The University of Florida says "There is no one ideal nutrient solution," and that you may have to test the solution frequently to ensure proper balance. The Virginia Cooperative Extension advises changing the nutrient solution every week if you start to notice signs of a nutrient deficiency. Stunted growth is a sign of several mineral deficiencies, so look for secondary clues, such as papery leaves, which narrows your choices down to potassium and zinc, or curly leaves, which indicates copper is low. Contact your county extension office for suggested nutrient combinations.

Light and Temperature

You must take care to control light and temperature to mimic the sunlight and environmental conditions that the plant would need in soil. One issue with hydroponic systems is keeping the light a consistent distance from the plants as they grow higher--you do not want them growing into the lamp. The University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension recommends installing adjustable lamps with "standard, cool white" fluorescent lights that you can raise as the plants grow.

Green fodder in 7 days

Now, produce green fodder sans soil in 7 days

(Times of India) Farmers paying high costs for cattle feed have some good news to chew on.

They can produce green fodder in an electronic machine without soil in just seven days. A hydroponics green fodder production unit, which can produce it faster than conventional method, was inaugurated at ICAR research complex, Old Goa, by A K Singh, deputy director general, ICAR, New Delhi on Sunday. "The seed has to be placed on a tray filled with water and kept in a machine under the right temperature, light and humidity," said N P Singh, director ICAR, Old Goa.

The conventional method takes 30 to 45 days, but the machine delivers it faster. "A 1.5 kg of maize seed can produce about seven to nine kg of fodder and its height grows to 20 to 25 cms," Singh said.

The state agriculture department has entrusted the scheme to Goa state cooperative milk producers' union limited for implementation. "The project worth Rs 2.20 crore is being taken up under the central government's Rakshtriya krishi vikas yojana (RKVY)," S Tendulkar, agriculture department director said.

The Goa dairy will purchase 11 electronic machines on a pilot project basis and install them in high milk producing areas.

"Each unit costing 25 lakh will be put at the farmers' service in areas with high concentration of dairy farmers," Madhav Sahakari, Goa dairy chairman said.

Goa has just around 8,000 dairy farmers as their number has declined due to higher production costs and other factors. "The milk production is around 50,000 litres per day," Sahakari said.

But the bulk of the requirement is procured from outside the state.

Though the animal husbandry and veterinary services department provides an attractive subsidy scheme to dairy farmers, the quantum of green fodder grown in the state is negligible," sources said.

"The dry concentrated feed is costly and farmers are facing problems in coping with production costs," Sahakari said. The machine produced fodder will also have higher protein content.

The use of hydroponic technology will also help reduce labour costs drastically.

"A single person can operate the electronic machine," Sahakari said. The farmers can place their trays in the unit and collect the fodder after a week. A specially formulated, energy-rich, feed supplement called 'bypass fat', prepared by ICAR from farm oil fatty seed for cattle was also released on Sunday.

"The simple, pro-small farmer indigenous technology for preparing the bypass fat is specially meant for the high-producing dairy animals," said P K Naik, ICAR senior scientist.

300 tons tomatoes per hectare

How can vegetable farmers in a desert produce 300 tons of tomatoes in one year per hectare? They don’t have fertile soil and they have only little water, yet the Israeli farmers in Arava , the southernmost part of the Negev desert in Israel, are producing just that.

(Mb.com.ph) The amazing feat is the result of technology developed through sustained innovative research and development program, plus an active extension service that keeps the farmers abreast of the latest develop-ments in farming.

The Arava area is sparsely populated. There are only about 600 families in eight settlements consisting of about 3,000 people. Yet, they are able to produce about 150,000 tons of vegetables a year in greenhouses. Most of the vegetables are exported to Europe and elsewhere, accounting for about 60 percent of the total vegetable export of Israel.

Each family usually cultivates five hectares for growing vegetables and other crops like melons, flowers and ornamental plants. One of the first settlers in 1959 is 74-year-old Amnon Navon of the Ein Yahav settlement. He was not even 18 when he arrived in Arava with practically no facilities for farming in the desert. Yet he and other settlers persisted, eventually helped by the government through the initiative of no less than the then Prime Minister Ben Gurion.

Amnon loves desert farming. He has greenhouses on five hectares where he produces mostly peppers and tomatoes. Cultivation is mechanized. He has three tractors to cultivate the soil.

There are only eight workers taking care of the five-hectare farm. These include Amnon himself, his wife Ora and a daughter, and five Thai workers. The Thai workers, he said, are hardworking and uncomplaining. But of course, they are adequately compensated with 22 Shekels per hour. That’s about US$50 per day or $1,500 per month, something they could never dream of receiving in their native country.

Amnon simply concentrates in producing his vegetables. His harvests are marketed by a cooperative. He considers his operation very simple. All he does is produce a good crop which he delivers to the cooperative that markets the vegetables locally and abroad.

Right in Ein Yahav, there is a big packing house that takes care of processing the harvest in the settlement. This is the Gilad Desert Produce Packing House managed by Eyal Sahar. This facility processes anywhere between 60 and 70 tons each day. The one day that they did not operate was when the Thai workers had a holiday in observance of Father’s Day, a holiday for the Thais. The packing house has at least 25 Thai workers.

Fertigation is the key to bumper harvests with very little water in the desert area. This is the use of drippers where water is delivered drop by drop including the appropriate fertilizer in the root zone.

Israel is considered the pioneer in drip irrigation. The biggest drip irrigation company in the world is the Netafim, followed by Jain Irrigation Systems in India, which incidentally has recently acquired another company in Israel, now known as NaandanJain.

In fertigation, the exact amount of water and fertilizer is supplied to the plants. This has several advantages. One is that there is economy in the use of water and fertilizer. Fertigated crops are earlier-maturing. The har-vest is higher, and is of better quality. Fruits are usually sweeter.

Genetics is also very important. Plant breeders in Israel are continually developing new varieties that suit the growing conditions in Israel. These include crops that are not only high-yielding but are also resistant to pests and diseases, tolerant to drought conditions and the like.

Crops are not the only products grown in the Arava area. Fish culture is also flourishing. One example is the Ginat Fish Company that specializes in producing aquarium fish for export. The company produces some 2 million guppies a year which are exported mostly to Europe.

Guppy is a cheap species that comes in many variations. One guppy usually sells for one Euro in Europe. The Ginat family has chosen this cheap fish for their own good reasons. Being cheap, it is one of the favorites of parents who want to give their children something to get busy with. If the fish dies, the parent can readily buy a replacement.

Aquarium fish breeding does not require as much water as the vegetable crops because it is just confined in a small area.

What is also very important in Israel’s success in agriculture is the very active extension service provided by the government. The extension service of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, from the early days, has been responsible in training inexperienced farmers, most of them new immigrants, so that they could produce crops with their limited resources.

The extension service has formed work teams around the country that conduct training, resulting in the pro-fessional advancement of agriculture in very competitive market conditions. The extension service serves public and private interests. There are 14 professional departments, specializing in the various branches of agricultural production. These are complemented by departments which provide professional support such as crop protection, field service for irrigation and fertilization, farm management and production economics, and mechanization and technology.

Production and extension are not the only major players in the agricultural industry in Israel. The Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute is also doing a big contribution to the progress of Israeli agriculture.

This is a non-profit organization founded in 1958 as the Israeli Export Institute by the government and the private sector. The Institute is responsible for the promotion of all kinds of Israel’s exports.

Foreign visitors will witness many of the new developments in agriculture in Israel if they will visit Agritech 2012, the international agricultural exhibition that will be held on May 15-17 in Tel Aviv.

By ZAC B. SARIAN

Hydroponics

What is hydroponics?

The word, Hydroponic, comes from Latin and means working water. Simply put, it is the art of growing plants without soil.

When most people think of hydroponics, they think of plants grown with their roots suspended directly into water with no growing medium. This is just one type of hydroponic gardening known as N.F.T. (nutrient film technique). There are several variations of N.F.T. used around the world and it is a very popular method of growing hydroponically. What most people don't realize is that there are countless methods and variations of hydroponic gardening. In this section, we explain the most common, including the pros and cons of each along with an abundance of great, general information about hydroponics.

Why does Hydroponics work so well?

That's simple. If you give a plant exactly what it needs, when it needs it, in the amount that it needs, the plant will be as healthy as is genetically possible. With hydroponics this is an easy task; in soil it is far more difficult.

With hydroponics the plants are grown in an inert growing medium (see below) and a perfectly balanced, pH adjusted nutrient solution is delivered to the roots in a highly soluble form. This allows the plant to uptake its food with very little effort as opposed to soil where the roots must search out the nutrients and extract them. This is true even when using rich, organic soil and top of the line nutrients. The energy expended by the roots in this process is energy better spent on vegetative growth and fruit and flower production.

If you grow two genetically identical plants using soil for one and hydroponics for the other, you will almost immediately see the difference this factor makes. Faster, better growth and much greater yields are just some of the many reasons that hydroponics is being adapted around the world for commercial food production as well as a growing number of home, hobby gardeners.

What is "growing medium"?

Growing medium is the material in which the roots of the plant are growing. This covers a vast variety of substances which include Rockwool, perlite, vermiculite, coconut fiber, gravel, sand and many more. The growing medium is an inert substance that doesn't supply any nutrition to the plants. All the nutrition comes from the nutrient solution (water and fertilizer combined). You can therefore, easily control everything the plants receive. The strength and pH of the nutrient solution is easy to adjust so that the plants receive just the right amount of food. The watering/feeding cycles can be controlled by an inexpensive timer so that the plants get watered on schedule, as needed.

What is the difference between hydroponic, organic and "regular" fertilizers?

Both hydroponic fertilizers and those intended for use in soil contain the three major nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. The major difference in hydroponic fertilizers is that they contain the proper amounts of all the essential micro-nutrients which fertilizers intended for use with soil do not. The plants are expected to find these elements in the soil, assuming that the trace elements are in fact present. Problems can arise for the plants if any or all of the micro-nutrients are not present in the soil or are depleted by successive (or excessive) plantings. 

Hydroponic fertilizers are usually in a more refined form with fewer impurities making them both more stable and soluble for better absorption. Organic fertilizers, in most cases, are very different than either hydroponic or soil fertilizers both in composition and how they deliver the nutrient to the plants. Organic fertilizers rely on the synergistic action of bacteria and microbes to break down nutritional substances for easier uptake by the plants. Hydroponic and soil fertilizers provide nutrients in a ready-to-use form. While once, they were mutually exclusive, in recent years a number of outstanding organic fertilizers have hit the market in formulations refined enough for use in hydroponics.

What are micro-nutrients?

The micro-nutrients, also known as trace elements that are required for healthy plant growth are calcium, magnesium, sulfur, boron, cobalt, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum and zinc. 

When deficient in any or all of these elements plants suffer stress, disease, become more susceptible to pest, fungus' and bacteria, and may have uptake issues with the N-P-K fertilizer they are being fed. At best, they will never live up to their genetic potential in growth and yield; at worst, they die. In the case of food crops, nutrient deficient plants lead to nutrient deficiencies in the people and animals who consume them. Due to years of over farming the same fields much of today's commercially produced food has a nutrient level barely exceeding waxed fruit. No surprise that more and more people are choosing to grow the food their families eat in their own gardens. When growing in soil remember to renew the dirt between plantings and when growing hydroponically know that it is absolutely essential to use a hydroponic fertilizer that provides all the trace elements.

How complicated is hydroponic gardening?

It can be but it doesn’t have to be. Hydroponics can be as incredibly simple as growing a single plant in a hand watered bucket or nursery pot, using any number of inert growing mediums. No automation, electricity or grow lights required.

Of course, the potential to go high tech is limited only by your imagination and budget. Virtually every aspect of garden management can be automated and should you so desire, monitored and controlled with your laptop or cell phone from the other side of the world. Dare to dream.

Most hobby oriented hydroponic systems are somewhere between the two extremes mentioned above. The average, home hydroponic system usually consists of a few basic parts: a growing tray, a reservoir, a submersible pump to water the plants, a simple timer and an air pump and air stone to oxygenate the nutrient solution. Of course, light (either natural or artificial) is also required.

Is pH important in hydroponics?

The control of pH is extremely important, not only in hydroponics but in soil as well. Plants lose the ability to absorb different nutrients when the pH varies. (This topic is answered in much greater detail in the "mini-class" on pH in Hydroponics).

The ability to quickly and easily test and control pH in hydroponics is a major advantage over dirt gardening, where testing and adjusting the pH is much more complicated and time consuming.