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http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/02/is-water-the-best-growing-medium-on-the-planet/
OPINION: Why Water?
By Urban Garden Magazine ⋅ February 16, 2010 ⋅ Email This Post ⋅ Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment
Filed Under Daniel Wilson, Issue 9, sustainability
Could H2O be the best growing medium on the planet?
Daniel Wilson invites us to rethink what gardening in earth vs. gardening in water really means to the sustainability of indoor gardening.
Allow me to paint you a picture…
It’s a beautiful day in Anywhere, USA. It’s 10:30 a.m. and somebody just woke up, had their herbal tea and is now ready to tackle a long day of transplanting young plants into 7 gallon containers of Sri Lankan coco. They hop into their biodiesel powered 4×4 and head straight for the local grow store to pick up the pallet of coco it’s gonna take to fill those 120 containers. After dropping a cool $1,500 for the medium and another $250 for containers, they load up their rig and jump back on the 101 and it’s off to work. Sound like anybody you know?
There’s obviously a fair amount of energy someone’s just expended and they haven’t even started “work” yet. It’s pretty obvious this is a labor intensive method, but it’s well worth it because they’re growing organically, right? Oh … they’re using synthetic coco fertilizers, run drain-to-waste? But don’t they live in the woods? What happens to the run-off? Thank goodness nutrients come in 5 gallon containers because we’re going to be getting through a whole lotta nutes using the drain-to-waste method, right? Okay okay … I’ll quit this righteous talk. But let’s take a minute to ask ourselves a far more relevant question:
Q: Is it really sustainable to continue shipping millions of pounds of growth media all over the planet?
The current practice of bagging soils and shipping it indiscriminately around the globe has helped propel container soil/coco growing to its current popularity in the indoor grow scene. Though this is, without a doubt, a productive technique, it certainly makes the business of growing in earth a very petroleumintensive practice. Most of the organic growers I talk to take great pride in the natural grow medium they use and feel it’s the ecologically appropriate way to garden … as nature intended. Very few growers consider the great costs incurred by transporting that bag of earth conveniently to their local garden shop. The trucking of this relatively abundant resource (earth) has become quite commonplace in both greenhouse and year-round gardening circles. We rarely give a second thought to the amount of energy the bag of earth we depend upon so much represents. In fact, many growers are so confident in the sanity of these perpetual shipping practices that they will buy brand new bags of earth for their next cycle of plants to follow this round. Alas, very few would consider the idea of composting their used grow medium to be used to generate future harvests.
That being said, we need to consider what would happen if the shipping of soils for thousands of miles just becomes impossible … due to regulations on shipping or even a reluctance of a region to want to give up its precious carbon source, perhaps seeing it a better idea to keep it local and grow food in it as opposed to trading it for money. I know, I know, some of this might seem pretty far out and unlikely but it’s these awkward questions that lead us into discussions which begin to propagate solutions for the future. The critical thinking necessary to tackle issues before they become an “issue” is what we need to strive for as a garden and farm-based civilization. Past populations both benefitted and suffered from the methods they preached and practiced. It’s only in hindsight that clarity begins to develop and we are able to steer a course for the better.
So this leads me to our next Q & A.
Q: What is the most sustainable grow medium for the future of indoor and greenhouse cultivation?
For this question there is no simple answer.
1) The renewability of coir fiber is promising, but unless coir is a local product we are still faced with the shipping issues.
2) Naturally derived soils are another obvious option but, as with coir, unless we can solve the shipping dilemma it too falls short with regard to its practicality over time.
3) Stone wool (aka rock wool) products are a mainstay of commercial growers and are a fairly sustainable option – but it takes intense amounts of energy and large factories to process into forms well-suited for plant cultivation. And there’s still the matter of shipping, as far as from Holland to California at times: yikes.
4) Regional soils offer a pretty attractive option as we could build soils from an area’s most naturally occurring resources. This might mean West Coast Soils, East Coast Soils, Deep South Soils … you get the gist. This would make for minimal shipping, and it just makes sense.
5) Expanded clay pellets are another option with a light and dark side. Though made out of naturally occurring inputs, it (like stone wool) is energy intensive to make and costly to ship. More often than not it’s coming all the way from Germany!
6) Local water sources all over the planet offer a reusable and renewable way of growing healthy food, fiber and medicine. It’s possible to pump water vertically from indigenous terrestrial aquifers, or when available, benefit from naturally occurring snow melt driven by gravity.
Is it really possible that water could be considered a viable alternative to growing crops in a conventional substrate? What about plant nutrition? This leads us to our next question …
Q: Besides Aquaponics, don’t most high performance water culture applications rely on inorganic nutrients to work most productively?
Hydroponic applications use mineral salts to provide plants with the nutrition they require to grow and bloom. Most hyper-oxygenated water culture methods tend to greatly increase the efficiency of nutrient uptake in the plants’ root zone. This, in turn, maximizes these naturally occurring earth elements by offering them to plants in their most available forms. Typically you can run your nutrient solution at 40%-70% strength when compared to regular application recommendations for any given nutrient. Combine this with the closed loop nature of the majority of water culture applications and you are feeding your crops and also managing our planet’s most precious resource in a responsible, efficient manner.
Q: Isn’t that still using petroleum-intensive inputs to grow plants? So what’s the difference between this and using petroleum to ship soils?
Most notably, the difference is the reduced emissions from the avoidance of burning fossil fuels to ship transcontinental distances. Besides, this efficient nutrient uptake and constant recirculation gets the most out of both the nutrient and the water. Dissolved minerals in solution make the need for a conventional growth substrate relatively unnecessary in modern gardening applications. This can result in another way for gardeners to save.
Now let’s really get down to the bottom-line with this whole water angle:
Q: Sure seems like it takes a lot of plastic to make a hydroponics system … don’t they make that out of petroleum too?
This is without a doubt the least sustainable aspect to any plastic-intensive hydroponics application. Keep in mind, though, that the majority of soil cultivation is in plastic soil pots … which are often not reused. Most hydroponics systems incorporate as much recyclable content as possible in the form of HDPE (which currently has a LEED rating), PP (Poly Propylene) and other relatively benign plastics. At the present time there are no viable substitutes for PVC & ABS plastics. Hopefully in the not-so-distant future, plant-based polymers may offer a more sustainable substitute. When a hydroponics system is designed and built professionally it should be something that can be used for many, many years. It’s only over this period of time that the practicality of using the plastic finally balances out the negative impact of the plastic itself. With that said, avoid hydroponic plastics if you’ve no intention of reusing it over and over.
Some Conclusions
Whether you’re a fan of soil or water as your grow medium, one thing is for certain: producing consistently good results has to be the common denominator in any crop production strategy. There’s no shortage of different time tested techniques to get sound results. The ever-evolving challenge is how we can achieve the results we expect without disproportionately depleting our planet’s natural resources.
LEDs replacing HID grow lights within the next decade is pretty unlikely, but we can make responsible substitutions as these new technologies become available. Modern water culture methods are one of the most implementable techniques we can use to reduce our carbon footprint as growers. Though not perfect, water culture provides a genuinely organic grow medium at the turn of a wrist. Put down that bag and pick up the hose.
Some final food for thought:
Plant life as we know it conceivably evolved in the oceans long before our earth’s mantle was broken down into what we now consider soil. It was only when single-celled organisms came to the rocky shores of these primordial continents that terrestrial plants even began to exist.With that said, all plant life has its most ancient DNA, which is still able and very willing to adapt back to water. So if the seas were the Petri dish that plant life developed in, isn’t the ocean essentially just a constantly circulating, well-aerated solution of H2O and dissolved salts? Sound familiar?
OPINION: Why Water?
By Urban Garden Magazine ⋅ February 16, 2010 ⋅ Email This Post ⋅ Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment
Filed Under Daniel Wilson, Issue 9, sustainability
Could H2O be the best growing medium on the planet?
Daniel Wilson invites us to rethink what gardening in earth vs. gardening in water really means to the sustainability of indoor gardening.
Allow me to paint you a picture…
It’s a beautiful day in Anywhere, USA. It’s 10:30 a.m. and somebody just woke up, had their herbal tea and is now ready to tackle a long day of transplanting young plants into 7 gallon containers of Sri Lankan coco. They hop into their biodiesel powered 4×4 and head straight for the local grow store to pick up the pallet of coco it’s gonna take to fill those 120 containers. After dropping a cool $1,500 for the medium and another $250 for containers, they load up their rig and jump back on the 101 and it’s off to work. Sound like anybody you know?
There’s obviously a fair amount of energy someone’s just expended and they haven’t even started “work” yet. It’s pretty obvious this is a labor intensive method, but it’s well worth it because they’re growing organically, right? Oh … they’re using synthetic coco fertilizers, run drain-to-waste? But don’t they live in the woods? What happens to the run-off? Thank goodness nutrients come in 5 gallon containers because we’re going to be getting through a whole lotta nutes using the drain-to-waste method, right? Okay okay … I’ll quit this righteous talk. But let’s take a minute to ask ourselves a far more relevant question:
Q: Is it really sustainable to continue shipping millions of pounds of growth media all over the planet?
The current practice of bagging soils and shipping it indiscriminately around the globe has helped propel container soil/coco growing to its current popularity in the indoor grow scene. Though this is, without a doubt, a productive technique, it certainly makes the business of growing in earth a very petroleumintensive practice. Most of the organic growers I talk to take great pride in the natural grow medium they use and feel it’s the ecologically appropriate way to garden … as nature intended. Very few growers consider the great costs incurred by transporting that bag of earth conveniently to their local garden shop. The trucking of this relatively abundant resource (earth) has become quite commonplace in both greenhouse and year-round gardening circles. We rarely give a second thought to the amount of energy the bag of earth we depend upon so much represents. In fact, many growers are so confident in the sanity of these perpetual shipping practices that they will buy brand new bags of earth for their next cycle of plants to follow this round. Alas, very few would consider the idea of composting their used grow medium to be used to generate future harvests.
That being said, we need to consider what would happen if the shipping of soils for thousands of miles just becomes impossible … due to regulations on shipping or even a reluctance of a region to want to give up its precious carbon source, perhaps seeing it a better idea to keep it local and grow food in it as opposed to trading it for money. I know, I know, some of this might seem pretty far out and unlikely but it’s these awkward questions that lead us into discussions which begin to propagate solutions for the future. The critical thinking necessary to tackle issues before they become an “issue” is what we need to strive for as a garden and farm-based civilization. Past populations both benefitted and suffered from the methods they preached and practiced. It’s only in hindsight that clarity begins to develop and we are able to steer a course for the better.
So this leads me to our next Q & A.
Q: What is the most sustainable grow medium for the future of indoor and greenhouse cultivation?
For this question there is no simple answer.
1) The renewability of coir fiber is promising, but unless coir is a local product we are still faced with the shipping issues.
2) Naturally derived soils are another obvious option but, as with coir, unless we can solve the shipping dilemma it too falls short with regard to its practicality over time.
3) Stone wool (aka rock wool) products are a mainstay of commercial growers and are a fairly sustainable option – but it takes intense amounts of energy and large factories to process into forms well-suited for plant cultivation. And there’s still the matter of shipping, as far as from Holland to California at times: yikes.
4) Regional soils offer a pretty attractive option as we could build soils from an area’s most naturally occurring resources. This might mean West Coast Soils, East Coast Soils, Deep South Soils … you get the gist. This would make for minimal shipping, and it just makes sense.
5) Expanded clay pellets are another option with a light and dark side. Though made out of naturally occurring inputs, it (like stone wool) is energy intensive to make and costly to ship. More often than not it’s coming all the way from Germany!
6) Local water sources all over the planet offer a reusable and renewable way of growing healthy food, fiber and medicine. It’s possible to pump water vertically from indigenous terrestrial aquifers, or when available, benefit from naturally occurring snow melt driven by gravity.
Is it really possible that water could be considered a viable alternative to growing crops in a conventional substrate? What about plant nutrition? This leads us to our next question …
Q: Besides Aquaponics, don’t most high performance water culture applications rely on inorganic nutrients to work most productively?
Hydroponic applications use mineral salts to provide plants with the nutrition they require to grow and bloom. Most hyper-oxygenated water culture methods tend to greatly increase the efficiency of nutrient uptake in the plants’ root zone. This, in turn, maximizes these naturally occurring earth elements by offering them to plants in their most available forms. Typically you can run your nutrient solution at 40%-70% strength when compared to regular application recommendations for any given nutrient. Combine this with the closed loop nature of the majority of water culture applications and you are feeding your crops and also managing our planet’s most precious resource in a responsible, efficient manner.
Q: Isn’t that still using petroleum-intensive inputs to grow plants? So what’s the difference between this and using petroleum to ship soils?
Most notably, the difference is the reduced emissions from the avoidance of burning fossil fuels to ship transcontinental distances. Besides, this efficient nutrient uptake and constant recirculation gets the most out of both the nutrient and the water. Dissolved minerals in solution make the need for a conventional growth substrate relatively unnecessary in modern gardening applications. This can result in another way for gardeners to save.
Now let’s really get down to the bottom-line with this whole water angle:
Q: Sure seems like it takes a lot of plastic to make a hydroponics system … don’t they make that out of petroleum too?
This is without a doubt the least sustainable aspect to any plastic-intensive hydroponics application. Keep in mind, though, that the majority of soil cultivation is in plastic soil pots … which are often not reused. Most hydroponics systems incorporate as much recyclable content as possible in the form of HDPE (which currently has a LEED rating), PP (Poly Propylene) and other relatively benign plastics. At the present time there are no viable substitutes for PVC & ABS plastics. Hopefully in the not-so-distant future, plant-based polymers may offer a more sustainable substitute. When a hydroponics system is designed and built professionally it should be something that can be used for many, many years. It’s only over this period of time that the practicality of using the plastic finally balances out the negative impact of the plastic itself. With that said, avoid hydroponic plastics if you’ve no intention of reusing it over and over.
Some Conclusions
Whether you’re a fan of soil or water as your grow medium, one thing is for certain: producing consistently good results has to be the common denominator in any crop production strategy. There’s no shortage of different time tested techniques to get sound results. The ever-evolving challenge is how we can achieve the results we expect without disproportionately depleting our planet’s natural resources.
LEDs replacing HID grow lights within the next decade is pretty unlikely, but we can make responsible substitutions as these new technologies become available. Modern water culture methods are one of the most implementable techniques we can use to reduce our carbon footprint as growers. Though not perfect, water culture provides a genuinely organic grow medium at the turn of a wrist. Put down that bag and pick up the hose.
Some final food for thought:
Plant life as we know it conceivably evolved in the oceans long before our earth’s mantle was broken down into what we now consider soil. It was only when single-celled organisms came to the rocky shores of these primordial continents that terrestrial plants even began to exist.With that said, all plant life has its most ancient DNA, which is still able and very willing to adapt back to water. So if the seas were the Petri dish that plant life developed in, isn’t the ocean essentially just a constantly circulating, well-aerated solution of H2O and dissolved salts? Sound familiar?
